This movie has taught me to appreciate the finer tastes of ordinary-looking popcorn, after constantly chomping on the snack for almost 2 hours, and its function – to keep you busy in case you end up entering a theatre showing a huge mistake of a movie like The Treasure Hunter, which proves that it might not be worth the effort afterall.

The film plot tracks the race of a treasure hunt between treasure hunter Jay Chou (Initial D, Secret, Kungfu Dunk) and some weird masked or mummified enemies.

That is, if you count nightly flirtatious banter and ogling at a woman a “race”. As every hero’s unnecessary must-have beauty accessory, Lin Chi-ling (Red Cliff I & II) dutifully clings onto Jay’s back as they whiz through the desert on a big, bad, black motorcycle, tries desperately to figure out the non-existent chemistry between them, and not-so-surreptitiously seduces the hunter while wiping the day’s grime from her neck. Well, at least she actually does look pretty.

Honestly, there aren’t any competitors – the loser baddies who arrived in a storm vanished, literally, without rhyme or reason from the whole storyline after coming out to punch, kick, and roll in the sand for a while. Jay’s road to the buried treasure couldn’t be any smoother with a babe at his side and foes mysteriously absent.

The popular singer continues his cool, arrogant hero act here – same few expressions without much improvement – but provides endless scenes for groupies to squeal at. If you’re an action scene lover, there’re a few fight sequences with a mummified human, a Darth Vader sound-a-like, and 4 old bearded spirits.

Eric Tsang (Bodyguards and Assassins, Perhaps Love) acts as the comic relief character, though it’s probably redundant as this movie seems to be a joke in itself. The veteran reveals the hidden Singaporean in him, spewing his lines in Mandarin, English and Cantonese. Chen Daoming (Infernal Affairs III) is the “emo” guy with a screw loose, who mutters incomprehensibly to himself, and has a potentially powerful background story that was gone to waste.

Now, doesn’t all that just sound promising?

The Treasure Hunter is clearly a movie without any artistic aspirations, only hoping to bank on Jay Chou’s popularity to sell the tickets. Director Kevin Chu (Kungfu Dunk) needs to learn that a few stars carelessly thrown into the movie poster are no longer enough to lure the audience into spending their hard-earned money.

Even if you’re a fan of Jay, take heed to destroy any expectations of the movie you might have, and make sure your arms are full of popcorn, nachos, chips, and every snack you can grab before you walk into the cinema hall.

UrbanWire rates The Treasure Hunter 2/5.

Release Details:
Opens: Dec 31
Duration: 106 min
Language: Mandarin
Rating: PG
Genre: Action/Adventure
Director: Kevin Chu
Cast: Jay Chou, Lin Chi-ling, Eric Tsang, Chen Daoming