The Twins Effect
Cast:
Ekin Cheng - Reeve
Charlene Choi - Helen
Gillian Chung - Gypsy
Josie Ho - Lila
Anthony Wong - Prada
Edison Chen - Kazaf
Guest Stars:
Jackie Chan - Jackie
Introduction:
A huge summer box office hit in Hong Kong in 2003, The Twins Effect (Chin Gay Ben) is a mixture of action, martial arts, comedy and romance rolled into one. Set in the present, this is a Dante Lam film (Director of Beast Cop, Hit Team and Jiang Hu: The Triad Zone). This film was said to have taken over a half year to complete due to his eye for detail. Equally impressive is the martial arts/fight director, Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey). The fight scenes are fast-paced non-stop action between humans and vampires.
Basically you have a movie about vampire hunters and vampires, but there are good and bad vampires and what transpires between them and the vampire hunters is at the heart of this movie. To describe the genre this movie fits into, I would have to say it is a martial arts romantic comedy.
What Happens (Spoilers):
The plot begins with the introduction of Reeve (Ekin) and Lila (Josie) as a pair of vampire hunters as they fight a hoard of vampires in an empty subway station. The action is intense with a mixture of martial arts and special effects that culminates in a superbly-done fight scene. Vampires expire as in a burst of flames popular from the Hollywood Blade series. The scene ends with the escape of an injured evil Vampire Duke (Mickey Hardt) while Reeve is left hurt and Lila dead.
The story shifts to Kazaf (Edison), a vampire prince who purchases an abandoned church (bit of irony) to live in. Kazaf is a gentle vampire who falls for a young woman, Helen (Charlene Choi). It turns out Helen's brother is Reeve and at the start of this romance you can predict a complication, a vampire and the sister of a vampire hunter together. In a funny exchange, Kazaf's servant, Prada (Anthony Wong), describes how silly the idea of a vampire falling in love with a human is with an analogy. Prada asks if a human would ever fall in love with a pork chop or make love to a salmon fillet, saying humans can only be considered food for vampires. This does not prevent Kazaf from chasing after Helen and they set a first date for a noon time meeting at the park. What Kazaf forgets is that he can't actually walk out into the sunlight without bursting into flames. With the help of Prada, Kazaf uses what only can be considered a really bad home remedy lotion to try to walk in the sun. Kazaf meets Helen who after seeing the condition of Kazaf (who wore black with a hat and dark lotion on) thinks Kazaf is only fooling with her and doesn't actually like her. Kazaf explains that he has a life threatening condition that doesn't allow him to be in the sun and Helen is satisfied. Helen's idea for their first date is to crash a wedding. There is a silly scene at the wedding involving Jackie Chan but I won't get into that.
Reeve, who swore off having any more partners after Lila's death is given a new one by the agency that he works for. Gypsy (Gillian Chung) is a spunky young woman who idolizes Reeve, and at first sight you can see she has the hots for him. Reeve shows Gypsy the ropes, including a scene that explains how the vampire hunters are actually able to keep up with the super-fast and super-powerful vampires. It turns out that the vampire hunters drink vampire's blood to use the powers of the vampires to hunt them. The vampire blood only lasts ninety minutes before the drinker himself becomes a vampire. An antidote must be taken within ninety minutes to prevent the transformation. Reeve is at first reluctant to show affection for Gypsy but then kinda gives up after she saves his life. While Gypsy and Reeve get along great, this cannot be said for the first interactions between Gypsy and Reeve's sister Helen. The two of them become great enemies right away. Reeve let Gypsy stay in Helen's room without her permission and when Helen gets back that night she has a bit of screaming to do. Helen actually doesn't say a word but screams at the the top of her lungs and points at her bed or her toothpaste which she noticed was a bit used (by Gypsy). There is a great rooftop fight scene between Gypsy and Helen, which ends in a draw. They later strike a truce when Helen asks Gypsy to help her explain Kazaf to her brother, Gypsy only agrees after Helen tells her how cute she and her brother are as a couple and calls Gypsy "sister-in-law".
While all this romance is happening the big bad vampire (Mickey Hardt) that Reeve first fought in the opening has decided to steal the blood of all five vampire princes in order to unlock the vampire bible "Day for Night". This vampire bible contains the blood of a very powerful vampire that once taken by a vampire would allow him or her to become a day-walker, an invincible vampire. Four of the five princes have been taken down by the powerful Vampire Duke that has revolted against the king and only Kazaf is left. Kazaf and his servant Prada receive a message from the Vampire King (Kazaf's father) saying that he is in hiding and that his son Kazaf will have to be on his own. Of course the message is accompanied by none other then the "Day for Night" vampire bible, which the message says Kazaf has to protect. Kazaf being the gentle vampire that he is, refuses to bite humans to drink their blood. Previously supplied with monthly blood wine by his father the King, he must now find blood for himself. Kazaf decides to confide in Helen that he is a vampire before he dies. After Helen finds out, she decides to help Kazaf get some blood from the local hospital. After a run-in with some evil vampires Helen is able to prevent Kazaf from starving.
After a bit, the story shifts to the Vampire Duke, who has tracked down Kazaf. Reeve finds out about Helen and Kazaf and decides to break into the church to try to get him, but instead gets caught by his old nemesis, the Vampire Duke. Gypsy finds Helen and Kazaf and they devise a plan to try to save Reeve and Prada. Kazaf will go with a knife held to his own heart to try to stop the Vampire Duke (Kazaf's blood is no good if he is dead) while Gypsy and Helen go to save Reeve. Sadly Reeve has already become a vampire (forgot his antidote?) and there is a fight scene between Reeve, Helen and Gypsy. In the end Gypsy has to kill her beloved Reeve, and we see him blow up (a la Blade). Gypsy and Helen rush to save Kazaf, but the Vampire Duke has killed Prada and has already gotten Kazaf's blood opening the "Day for Night". There is a gigantic fight scene between tons of vampires, Helen, Gypsy and the big bad vampire. Gypsy ingests some of the "Day for Night" vampire bible's blood mass and becomes a very powerful vampire. The fight ends with the Vampire Duke dead and Helen, Gypsy and Kazaf walking outside in the night carrying swords. A monologue by Gypsy tells of the three of them possibly fighting more battles to come against the evil vampires out in the world.
What's Great:
The fight scenes are superb, and the action is fantastic. Much of the fights are obviously well beyond humanly possible but the fast action pace is what drives the scenes. One obvious draw for the film is the Twins, Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi, singers who have made a living more recently in TV (Monkey King, Quest for the Sutra) and movies (My Wife is 18 and Just One Look). These two beautiful young women are pure eye candy when it comes to their screen appearances.
The casting of Gillian as Gypsy and Charlene as Helen would seem to be wrong, since Charlene has been in many more movies as the lead in strong character roles. But in this movie we see different sides for both Gillian and Charlene. Gillian is very believable as a lovesick sidekick, while Charlene plays the angst filled teen of Helen perfectly. Watching the first meeting between Gypsy and Helen is just priceless, you would never have believed these two to be partners in a singing group. Edison also makes a superb job of being Kazaf, showing his kind, lovestruck vampire character. I don't think any movie can go wrong in casting Ekin as a sword-carrying hero.
What's Not:
What does "The Twins Effect" have to do with the title? The Chinese title means something like "thousand changes". Obviously the title speaks for the fact that the singing duo "Twins" is a part of the movie, but to the western world that is not accustomed to the singing group, the title is a bit misleading.
Another gripe I have is that Jackie Chan has a spot in the movie, and although I do love to watch him in fight scenes, his character could have been dispensed with completely. What is up with him being the groom at a wedding, who is an ambulance driver that knows how to kick some vampire ass? Another minor annoyance I had was with the use of the swords the vampire hunters had. Each is kinda like a large light saber with one end containing a retractable blade and the other end a retractable rope. The concept is nice, I must say, but in fight scenes the use of the two seemed unnatural. While I am on the swords, one thing I noticed was that when Ekin fights one vampire in a dark alley, the vampire lasts for a really really long time and doesn't die. The vampire's hands and feet seem to be impervious to the blade and he is able to block all of Ekins swings. But when Charlene and Gillian fight in the end they slash tons of vampires causing them to burst into flames with just one easy swipe.
What's Missing?
I wish they would have given a bit more of a role to Josie, whose Lila character was only there long enough to show people a good fight scene. Also as seen in many of Jackie Chan's movies, the credits roll shows out-takes and such. There seemed to be a lot of missing footage, or deleted scenes shown there, including a long playful scene between Reeve and Helen showing them fighting over something. I just hope they release a directors cut that puts all of this back in, since it does look like a lot of stuff hit the cutting room floor.
The Music
The theme song for the movie sounds great. Sounds kinda familar but I can't put my finger on it exactly. Not surprisingly the Twins sing the title song, but the big shocker is that the male voice on the track is sung by none other then Jackie Chan! It is definitely worth a listen.
Overall: See It or Not?
I though the movie was great, even though the plot was a bit thin and the effects a bit overwhelming. A very beautiful and handsome cast adds to the appeal. All my thumbs are pointing up! Stay tuned for the sequel planned for 2004.
