Undiscovered Tomb (2002)

Undiscovered Tomb (2002)

 

Starring: Marsha Yuan, Miyuki Koinuma, Yoko Shimada, Max Zhang, Sik Siu-Lung, Ken Wong
Director: Douglas Kung
Action Director: Kwok Nga-Cheung

 

Indiana Jones rip-offs have been a fairly big thing in Hong Kong (and by extension, the PRC) for quite some time. With thousands of years of recorded history; literature that speaks of numerous dynasties that predate the first archaeological-proven dynasty; a religious tradition that involves to varying degrees Taoism, Buddhism and a large pantheon of gods, demons and heroes; and numerous dynasties with their own distinct cultural quirks, China is just ripe for this kind of movie.

Interestingly enough, not all rip-offs produced in China have actually been set there. Armour of God and its sequel were set in Eastern Europe and North Africa, respectively. The Seventh Curse and Crystal Hunt took their antics to Southeast Asia. Stone Age Warriors, while not quite an Indiana Jones rip-off, does have the same sort of atmosphere and was set and filmed in New Guinea. Bury Me High went to a fictitious country—Viet-non, if you will—for its feng shui fantasy hijinks.

But then again, some movies did take their daring-do to China (or at least close-up to be considered Chinese). The Myth with Jackie Chan alternates between China and India. Michelle Yeoh’s The Magnificent Warriors is set in a fictional desert nation located probably somewhere on the border of China and Russia (or Kazakhstan). The 2015 Mainland film Chronicles of Ghostly Tribe is set ostensibly in China. At least three of Ching Siu-Tung’s 90s adventures—The Raid; Dr. Wai and the Scripture with No Words; and A Terra-Cotta Warrior—are located in China, two of which feature scenes in famous archaeological sites.

The big Indiana Jones rip-off of 2002 was Michelle Yeoh’s The Touch, the first-fruits of her production company that she founded with the bank she made from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. With high production values and a couple of (possibly?) recognizable names from Hollywood, the movie promised spectacle! Action! Romance! What it gave us was one or two okay fight scenes and some dodgy CGI at the end.

Undiscovered Tomb is the low-budget sister to The Touch, coming out the same year and having the same sort of vibe. It is probably a better movie all things considered…or at least in the action department. It has more fights. Better fights. And a climax that doesn’t involve extensive CGI that looked out of date even in 2002—there are some CGI critters that menace our heroes, but they’re not the film’s raison d’être.

The movie revolves around a pair of treasure hunters: Georgia (Marsha Yuan, best known for being Cheng Pei-Pei’s daughter) and Mandy (Miyuki Koinuma). They were orphans who were adopted and raised by Professor Ivy Chan (The Hunted’s Yoko Shimada), an archaeologist who instilled in them a love for all things adventure…and presumably paid for them to have extensive martial arts training, too. After an opening set piece involving the girls stealing an artifact from a museum while an auction is being held on its roof, the Professor gives her adopted daughters their first “real” mission.

Near the China-India border is the titular tomb, which was supposedly built for one of the incarnations of Buddha who had quite possibly discovered the secret to eternal life. The map to the place is apparently found on a pair of tablets. The Professor says she has one tablet, and sends the girls into the forests of Northwestern Yunnan (or Southeastern Tibet) to find the other tablet. The girls hire a guide named Kid (former child actor Sik Siu-Lung, best known for the Shaolin Popey movies) and meet up with another adventurer named Steve (Max Zhang, of Invincible Dragon and The Brink) whom Georgia grudgingly allows to accompany them on the mission. They eventually find the tablet in possession of some stone age tribe, but as they draw closer to the tomb, they will have to contend with an even more dangerous tribe, snakes, creepy crawlers, and a band of mercenaries known as The Wild Wolves.

So, how does the fare on the Indiana Jones rip-off checklist? Let’s see: Adventurers in search of an artifact with vaguely supernatural powers? Check. Rival team of explorers on their tail? Check, although the Wild Wolves don’t really become a problem until the final act. A few traitors along the way? Check. Chinese kid who helps the adventurers? Yes, although Sik Siu-Lung was already a lot older than Short Round was in Temple of Doom. A room full of creatures guaranteed to make one’s skin crawl? Yes. Deadly tribes? Sort of, yes. Deadly traps? Not as much as you’d think. A supernatural finale? Yes, although it’s an impetus to a fight scene instead of an FX (and gore) show. What it’s missing is mainly a set of scenes where the characters have to study maps, books, old pictures, photographs, etc. and solve a puzzle or two to find out where to go. The solution to the mystery is easy enough in the context of the film that you wonder how the tomb lay undiscovered for so long.

This was the first film for lead actress Marsha Yuan, daughter of Shaw Brothers wuxia diva Cheng Pei Pei. Both Marsha and her sister, Eugenia, were getting into films at this point—Eugenia had an important supporting role in Flying Dragon, Leaping Tiger, which came out the same year. Marsha’s career never quite took off: she starred in a few films for My Way Film Company and Girls n’ Guns veteran Sharon Yeung Pan Pan’s production company, but none of them were very notable save the second Shaolin vs. the Evil Dead movie. She also had a bit role as one of the 10 Tigers of Kwangtung in Jackie Chan’s Around the World in 80 Days. It’s sad that she came of age when HK cinema was on the decline and only a few veterans—Donnie Yen, Wu Jing—could really establish themselves as action stars. She has the moves, but she didn’t really seem to have the chance.

Joining her is Yoko Shimada, the award-winning actress best known for playing Mariko in the Emmy Award-winning mini-series Shogun. Shimada was pushing 50 at this point and her career was in a sharp decline in her native Japan, quite possibly due to her (public?) gambling and drinking issues. Less than a decade later, she would appear in a pair of AV films at the age of 57—which on one hand might be flattering, but was also indicative that she really had nowhere to go, dramatically, at that point. And while Shimada was on the skids, co-star Max Zhang (credited as John Zhang) was, like Marsha, starting off his career. It took him about a decade, but he eventually got the recognition he deserved for his fighting skills and became one of the few active action actors in Hong Kong cinema.

The action was brought to you by Kwok Nga-Cheung, a member of the Singapore Creative Stunt Team. Although he worked as a stuntman in a number of high-profile Hong Kong movies—God of Gamblers; Full Contact; Once Upon a Time in China IV—his outings as an action director have been more low-key, with his only notable films being King Boxer and Chinese Heroes. That said, I think he did better here with the action than he did with those movies. While those two outings had their moments, the action here has that grounded kickboxing feel of an 80s action film (or early 90s Girls n’ Guns flick). The wires are mainly reserved for the opening set piece at the museum, but that’s because Marsha Yuan’s character is already suspended from wires in the context of the scene. That is probably the least interesting fight in the movie, mainly thanks to the dark lighting of the museum setting.

Things pick up with a pair of two lengthy duels between Marsha and Max, with the best and most intense one being saved for the pre-climatic scuffle between the two. Max gets to show off more of his awesome footwork sans wires—SPL 2, I’m looking at you. In addition to the 80s-esque fight choreography, the two go at it with weapons. Marsha Yuan gets an antique sword while Max steals a dagger-axe (an ancient pole-arm that was essentially a long pole, or spear, with a dagger-like blade popping out perpendicular to the shaft). The choreography here was quite good. Earlier, there are some brief tussles with some tribesmen and Wild Wolf mercenaries.

The finale is a fight with a re-animated Terra Cotta warrior that brings to mind 70s films like Shaolin Wooden Men and Shaolin Temple. This is an interesting fight, because the statue fights with a limited flexibility, but is naturally assisted by its innate hardness and weight, which makes its simple blows stronger than they would be coming from a human opponent. Our heroes perform all sorts of kicks and jump kicks on it, but they can’t make it budge. And within the context of the film, that’s how it should be. This may not be the most interesting fight in the film, but it is certainly the hardest one, so the movie fulfills its climax obligations handily. If more attention had been given to the adventure in question and the lore behind what our heroines were looking for, this might reach the heights of…the Armour of God movies. As it stands, it’s probably better than The Touch…and Dial of Time.