Directed and written by Jianhua Chi, starring Yuetao Liu, Xu Shaoqiang and Jinqiang Wang.

A band of warriors do their best to stop Japanese occupying forces from stealing ancient Chinese relics, leading to them exploring ancient tombs, being attacked by a giant lizard, a long-haired apeman and the reanimated corpse of a concubine. They also fight each other over the treasure they discover and must deal with ancient boobytraps too.

HOPELESS SITUATION is lumbered with a lame title and very artificial-looking digital effects. It also doesn’t help that the main group of characters (including a rifleman, a female fighter and a hunchback dude with an eyepatch) are not properly introduced to the viewer, so you’re not particularly invested in their plight.

The obstacles these protagonists must face include ninjas, Japanese military bad guys and the aforementioned monsters…

The origin of the huge lizard isn’t explained: it’s just some big beast that lives in the mountain trails near Craggy Ridge. There are a couple of battles with this (sub-par) CGI reptile, which likes to fling people about, allowing for some kinetic-but-shoddy wirework stunts.

Once the Chinese adventurers reach caverns they are set upon by a shaggy, acrobatic ape-humanoid with a strange face. This white-furred wild man, portrayed by a stuntman in a creature costume, bounds around the cave walls and beats up some of the people, before he’s blown up with dynamite. This is a pretty decent sequence.

The preserved body of a long-dead emperor’s concubine is the third otherworldly obstacle. She becomes a threat once someone foolishly takes a magic sphere from her mouth. She comes back to ‘life’, her face goes zombie-like, her eyes glow and she zips around the tomb, biting the throats of her victims.

Once the survivors escape the killer-concubine, they find themselves in grassland beyond the mountains, facing off against the Japanese villains… and then the huge lizard returns for a final fight!

With lots of action, decent comic book-like period costumes and a plot that includes betrayals and riddle-solving, it’s a shame that the special effects are just not good enough and the dialogue is too expository, preventing this Chinese action-fantasy flick from becoming the diverting adventure romp it had the potential of being.