Royal Treasure
极限挑战 皇家宝藏
China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 101 mins.
Directors: Yan Min 严敏, Ren Jing 任静.
Rating: 4/10.
Middling film spin-off of a TV reality-game show, with the same stars but not much to involve the viewer.
STORY
Heshun town, Tengchong municipality, Yunnan province, southern China, 2016. Dressed as Ming-dynasty jinyiwei 锦衣卫 (military secret police), actors Huang Bo, Huang Lei, Sun Honglei, Luo Zhixiang, Wang Xun and Zhang Yixing are filming a segment for Dragon TV’s reality/variety show Go Fighting! 极限挑战. Hit by a sudden bolt of lighting, they disappear and wake up in 1662, when Yunnan was ruled by the last of the Southern Ming Yongli emperors, Zhu Youlang (Yu Hewei). Arrested and taken to meet the emperor in Wenchang Palace, they become involved in a discussion over who should become the consort of the princess, Hundred Flowers (Zhao Liying). Wang Xun accidentally kills the emperor by shooting an arrow into his mouth, but the six manage to get transported back to the present by another bolt of lightning. However, they find history has been rewritten and their identities erased; with no work on the show, they decide to go off and hunt for the Royal Treasure, using the personalised Order of the Holy Flame 圣火令 tablets they were given by the emperor. After changing into modern clothes at a hot-springs resort, they face five challenges, with one person eliminated during each one.
REVIEW
Six celebrities wander round the Yunnan countryside pretending to take part in challenges in Royal Treasure 极限挑战 皇家宝藏, a film spin-off of Dragon TV’s reality-game show Go Fighting! 极限挑战 (2015- ), now in its second series with the same names. As movie versions of TV reality shows go, this one is very middling, on a rough par with Where Are We Going, Dad? 爸爸去哪儿 (2014) for pure cinematic interest. A 15-minute prologue concocts a story where the six actors travel through a time warp back to the end of the Southern Ming dynasty and, after accidentally killing the last emperor (Yu Hewei 于和伟, in an amusingly offhand interpretation), return to the present to find history has been re-written and they no longer exist. Instead of continuing to film for the show, they go off in search of some royal treasure. Once the challenges/games start, and one actor is eliminated in each, the format is predictable, with each actor supposedly playing a version of himself.
Where Dad had the celebrities’ children to keep it lively, Treasure has just the sextet of Huang Bo 黄渤, Huang Lei 黄磊, Sun Honglei 孙红雷, Luo Zhixiang 罗志祥 (the octopus-like character in Mermaid 美人鱼, 2016), comedian-director Wang Xun 王迅 and singer-actor Zhang Yixing 张艺兴, plus occasional yokels they meet en route. Their repartee has an artificial feel, and the challenges (apart from a game of Russian Roulette, late on) aren’t especially interesting per se, so the main interest is in watching the celebs’ supposedly un-scripted “off-camera” behaviour. Huang Lei comes across as a solid type, Huang Bo (more surprisingly) as rather dull; the biggest show-off, but also showing a dry sense of humour, is Sun. The sole non-Mainlander, Luo, looks a bit lost inbetween having his Taiwan accent made fun of, while Zhang is the most vanilla of the group and thankfully the first to go. Unsurprisingly, the order of elimination reflects each actor’s star power.
Until the third challenge (in a bat cave), the film just ticks over, with the actors showing no special chemistry with each other. Thereon, the direction and dialogue become more filmy and less mockumentary, with some attempt to construct an emotional connection between the players. It’s fake, but it just about carries the movie through to its finale. Technical credits are okay, making the most of the scenery around Heshun, in the area of Tengchong; as on TV, screen pop-ups (dialogue bubbles, etc.) appear all the way through. In the run-up to Chinese New Year, the film managed to gross RMB125 million – mild, considering the names attached.
CREDITS
Presented by SMG Pictures (CN), Dragon TV (CN), Nanjing Daodaoxingzhi Culture Media (CN), Beijing Xinbaoyuan Entertainment Investment (CN), Beijing Skywheel Entertainment (CN), Hangzhou Heima Film & TV Culture (CN). Produced by SMG Pictures (CN), Dragon TV (CN).
Script: Shu Huan, Yan Min, Liao Miaojing. Photography: Chen Dan. Music: Peng Fei. Art direction: Sun Li. Sound: Wang Gang, Jiang Jianqiang. Visual effects: Wang Shang, Liu Jun (Daysview Digital Image). Postproduction direction: Liu Hong, Hu Bo.
Cast: Huang Bo, Huang Lei, Sun Honglei, Luo Zhixiang, Wang Xun, Zhang Yixing (themselves), Zhao Liying (Hundred Flowers, princess), Yu Hewei (Zhu Youlang, Southern Ming Yongli emperor), Xie Mengwei, Huang Tingjun, Li Zhuolin.
Release: China, 15 Jan 2016.