The Twins Effect (2003) Movie Review
Written by: ML
Edited by: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: Dante Lam, Donnie Yen
Producers: Cheung Shing-sheung
Writers: Chan Hing-kar, Ng Wai-lun
Date Released: March 8, 2003
Cast:
Charlene Choi as Helen
Gillian Chung as Gypsy
Ekin Cheng as Reeve
Edison Chen as Kazaf
Anthony Wong as Prada
Jackie Chan as Jackie Fong
Karen Mok as Ivy
Mickey Hardt as Duke Dekotes
Rating = 1/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
The story begins with a vampire hunter losing his partner in battle. He got himself a new partner who was not in good terms with his sister at first. The sister then meets a vampire prince after a breakup scene at a restaurant. They fell in love with each other, causing a lot of problems with the vampire hunters and the horde of evil vampires. They have to work together to defeat the vampire duke from becoming too powerful to take over the world.
Gore Factor
For a vampire movie, this has little to no blood spill at all. There is even no biting spree. Blood exposure is limited to blood bags, wine cups, and very few bloody fangs. The only scary thing about this movie is the use of awesome vampire fangs and bloodshot glowing eyes. The effect of vampires turning into ashes when stabbed with the hunter sword is a good one.
The Grave Review
The Twins Effect (2003) is purely about martial arts being used to defeat vampires. This is the probably the only good thing about it. Not to mention Jackie Chan’s cameo role.
It is not a typical story though, having an evil vampire duke eliminating royal vampires to gain their power. It’s a mix of comedy, action, and romance.
The characters are too cute. Even their acting is a bit cartoonish and exaggerated. But when they start to showcase their martial arts skills, no vampire can ever lay a fang on them.
There are a lot of scenes that are added for comic relief: The restaurant scene where Kazaf and Helen first met, the wedding crasher scene where Jackie Chan is the groom, the ambulance fighting scenes with Jackie Chan, and the rooftop action sequence between Helen and Gypsy. Most, if not all of the action and fighting sequences are too long.
One questionable sequence is when Helen and Gypsy almost fail to defeat Reeve but when they came face-to-face with a horde of vampires, they easily defeated them even weaponless most of the time. How the vampire book “Day For Night” works was also not explained in detail. There were a lot of weird things that happened to the book before it released a virus-looking ball that was actually essential in defeating the duke.
The ending seemed cool though, in the sense that it became a premise for a sequel as they continue to become vampire hunters.
Overall, this movie is fine if you are looking for more action sequences rather than scares. This is a light vampire movie and just as entertaining as any other martial arts film.
For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews gives The Twins Effect (2003) one grave out of five graves.
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