| "Asia's Tomb Raider" (as proclaimed by the DVD cover) is played by Marsha Yuan (the daughter of old-school kung fu star Chang Pei-Pei), who is a fledgling explorer under the tutelage of Yoko Shimada. Along with her comedic sidekick (Miyuki Koinuma) and the kung fu brat himself, Sik Siu Lung (who still looks like a twelve-year-old kid), Marsha sets out to find a stone tablet which may hold the key to everlasting life. Of course, a nasty gang who conviently wear all the same "evil henchman" outfits is also after the tablet, and there's a student (John Zhang) tagging along who might not be what he seems. Along with a giant snake, "natives" (who are probably played by the same guys in the gang with different outfits) attacking them, and Ken Wong sticking his greasy mug into the proceedings as a shady art dealer, it seems to be a treacherous path ahead for our interpid adventurers.
Hong Kong film-makers have long been pretty shameless in taking cues from their western counterparts, so it should come as no surprise that after the success of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (the live-action adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video game series), some crafty producer would put two and two together and try and create a Chinese version of Lara Croft. While Undiscovered Tomb tries very hard and manages to succeed on some levels -- it's actually more enjoyable as a whole than the "legitimate" Tomb Raider movies -- its' low budget sucks it into a deep pit early in the game, and the picture never seems to be able to claw its' way fully out of cinematic mediocrity.
Case in point -- the aforementioned giant snake. Even by 2002's standards for a movie shot in Mainland China, the CGI is simply abysmal and ruins any excitement the scene might have generated. Likewise, during the finale, the group takes on a statue come to life. More bad CGI? Nope. It's a guy in a big rubber suit. That's right -- we're talking about the full-on Inframan style here. Besides the not-so "special" effects, Undiscovered Tomb can't seem to provide any spit-and-polish to even the most general of proceedings. The acting veers between wooden and annoying, and the camerawork and editng leaves a lot to be desired; a lot of the movie's shots simply don't match up.
All that is a shame, really, because Undiscovered Tomb has the germinations of a great girls-with-guns flick, but nothing ever seems to come to fruition. The women are good looking, the script isn't horrible and there is a lot of action. In fact, if it wasn't for the suspect cinematography, I would have said that this was some of the better stuff I've seen in a while. Alas, I can't say that, and can only really give Undiscovered Tomb a mild recommendation. Certainly, fans of female-oriented low-budget action movies will find some good times here, but for the majority of the viewers out there, Undiscovered Tomb will just come off as yet another half-ass attempt to establish Hong Kong's next big action star. |
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