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 And a climax that doesn’t involve extensive CGI that looked out of date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.
