Chu Yen-Ping has long been known as one of the lower-tier directors working in Asia. Even when he's gotten to work with big stars such as Jackie Chan, the results have been duds like Island of Fire. Chu's latest effort, The Treasure Hunter, isn't going to rocket him to the top echelon of Asian directors, but it's an entertaining enough picture if you just want to check out a brainless action/adventure.

Taiwanese pop star Jay Chow (who previously worked with Chu on Kung Fu Dunk, a movie as terrible as the title suggests) stars here as Qiao Fei, who is basically an Indiana Jones-style archeologist, in that he works for a museum (headed here by Kenneth Tsang) to rescue stolen artifacts. After Kenneth is killed under mysterious circumstances, Qiao heads to the outskirts of China to find his daughter, Lan Ting (Lin Chi-Ling), who holds the key to discovering the Lost City, which supposedly contains a large treasure. Hot on their trail are a pair of rival adventurers, Pork Rib (Eric Tsang) and Hua (Chen Dao-Ming), as well as a band of deadly desert marauders.

So the plot here is pretty pedestrian, and the machinations of the film itself add nothing new to the mix. Basically, we get an action scene, a travel scene, and then an exposition scene. Wash, rinse, and repeat for 100 minutes, and you've got the gist of how The Treasure Hunter is going to roll. It's obvious that Chu Yen-Ping was making a film to cash in on Jay Chou's popularity with teenagers, and while there's nothing really wrong with that per se, it would have been nice to see a bit more creativity in the story, especially considering the script was penned by Ivy Ho, one of Hong Kong's better screenwriters.

Still, for what it is, The Treasure Hunter isn't all that bad. Yes, Jay Chou's facial expressions throughout the movie seem to indicate that someone just cut a fart, and there is zero chemistry between him and Lin Chi-Ling, despite her being gorgeous. And you will have to deal with Eric Tsang over-acting, which seems to be his normal mode when doing a comedic role. But at least there is some fun to be had here -- mindless as it may be -- which is more than can be said about recent big-budget disappointments like The Storm Warriors.

RATING: 5