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Twins Effect, The

Hong Kong (2003), 107 minutes
Starring: Ekin Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Edison Chen, Anthony Wong, Josie Ho, Mickey Hardt, and Jackie Chan
Reviewer: Val Frost
Genre: Action, Comedy, Horror
Rating: 4

Reeve (Ekin Cheng) is a vampire hunter who seems to always have a female partner. His latest is Gipsy (Gillian Chung), and she is about as inept as vampire hunters go. Reeve’s sister, Helen (Charlene Choi), falls for a vampire Kazaf (Edison Chen) who is not only a prince, but a real sweetie! Yeah, no blood sucking for Kazaf, his Vampire King daddy sends him and his posse cases of bottled wine. Then some Duke dude revolts against the king, steels the other princes’ (there are five all told) um blood essence or something (looks like a petrified chicken gizzard) and goes looking for Kazaf. Guess once the Duke has all the gizzards, he can open this big ugly book called Day for Night” and then be able to walk in the daylight without turning to toast.

Of course Reeve and Gipsy need to kill the Duke and his cronies and when Reeve is captured, Gipsy goes looking for Kazaf and Helen in order to rescue Reeve.

There is also some odd-ball sub-plot with Jackie Chan that has little to do with the plotline but hey, Hong Kong flicks aren’’t famous for plot development so I just enjoyed watching Jackie do his thing. Karen Mok has a small role too in the same sub-plot and considering her character really has nothing to do with anything, I got quite a kick out of her performance.

Alright, so where are the twins in a film called The Twins Effect? I have no idea. I have no idea what the heck the title means so let me get that out of the way right now.

Both stylish and campy, the film is a pleasant diversion from some of the more serious vampire-hunter movies that have been around in the past few years. Ekin Cheng is given little to do however beyond his normal cooler-than-thou act, and while it works in spades here, I would have liked to see his character do more. Charlene Choi and Gillian are both charming and spunky; nothing much more required of them. Edison Chen brings an honest warmth to his role of Kazaf, a vampire who actually wants humans for friends as opposed to lunch. Josie Ho appears in only the first ten minutes of the film as Lila, a former partner of Reeve. Lila is a bit rougher than Gipsy (which isn’t saying much) and I was sad to see her character fade out so quickly.

The special effects and CGI are pretty decent if a little familiar but the biggest problem I had with Effect had more to do with makeup. The nasty-ass yellow teeth the Duke sports are cheesier than a Celine Dion video.

Dark and slick with a touch of humor and some fun fights, I found The Twins Effect to be a fairly satisfying genre flick. Check it out!