TREASURE HUNT (2011) 無價之寶 HONG KONG MOVIE REVIEW. It’s Much Ado about Everything.

TREASURE HUNT 2011 

無價之寶

PRESS PREVIEW

Just try indulging in a poker game with Hong Kong film director WONG JING and you will soon realize he’s one smartie who knows how to field his cards right.

This renowned kingpin of screwball comedies understands what the masses want. And he surely delivers the goods.

This time around, he is offering yet another mindless farce to appease his regular slapstick fan’s palate.

You’d call this summer earnings to add to his coffers.

Now, kindly stay braced for a madly scrīpted TREASURE HUNT, an absurd buffoonery that stars CECILIA CHEUNG in a pallid comeback role.

Money works wonders, no doubt.

CECILIA proudly packages her young son LUCAS TSE (son of NICHOLAS TSE) who’s obviously, apart from having a whale of time swarming us with his kiddish antics, is beginning to see lucrative returns at a tender age.

This child star, who’s au naturel in front of the camera, is groomed to be a future star in the making, thanks to his luminous parents. You just watch him glow with absolute radiance.

Cool.

CECILIA CHEUNG takes on the role of a successful television commercial director who’s very much happily married with an active 3- year old son.

As the story opens, she has been offered lucrative terms to direct a TVC on a remote island with an obnoxious gas bag played by RONALD CHENG as a great Kung Fu master. RONALD provides the main gags in the movie.

CECILIA arrives on the island with her actors and crew and finds that they clash with unexpected, albeit unwelcome company – that of a notorious bunch of villians who harbor a deadly agenda – to recover an old sunken ship laden with mystical treasures and woe betide anyone who gets in their way.

Thereafter the heroes, anti-heroes and baddies battle it out in a dangerous cat-and-mouse race to outdo one another, and stay out of harm’s way.

Filled with spoofs, one-liners,  insipid jokes and non-stop escapades that run amok, the plot is the least of director WONG JING’s concerns.

The action is wild and wacky and the gags will never cease to cause the intellectual mind to squirm.

Will CECILIA and company be able to survive this dangerous encounter?

Go watch the movie for:

Cheeky kids. Apart from LUCAS TSE, there’s also this  capricious little boy, a sweet girl and a greedy little fatty.  They liven up the film with their age-of-innocence acting and soulful characteristics. They practically steal the thunder from the adult players.

In the acting department, expect nothing new from the actors as the scrīpt is far from fetching.

There are raw touches of an old ENID BLYTON (British writer of children’s stories) tale called ISLAND OF ADVENTURE.

This is one of director WONG JING’s more watchable  movies, and it has a fair share of emotive moments, milked by the young stars.

Other than that, this is a film that entertains on a boring Summer evening and as soon as you leave the cinema, you’d probably forget what the feature is all about.

Blame it on the plot that has much to do about nothing.

Or maybe, something.

You tell me, folks.