The Twins Effect (千机变 /Chin gei bin -2003)

AKA: The Vampire Effect

Starring:
Ekin Cheng - Reeve
Charlene Choi - Helen
Gillian Chung - Gypsy
Anthony Wong Chau-Sang - Prada
Edison Chen - Kazaf
Jackie Chan - Jackie
Josie Ho - Lila
Maggie Lau - Nurse Maggie
Karen Mok - Ivy
Winnie Leung - Deborah
Mandy Chiang - Momoko

EKIN CHENG plays REEVES, a veteran vampire hunter from the ANTI-VAMPIRE LEAGUE who has lost all of his female partners in the past. Even tougher to bear than their actual deaths at the hands of his fanged foes is the fact that he's almost always fallen in love with them before their untimely demise. Vowing never to become romantically attached to his next partner, we meet GYPSY (played by the ever so cutesy GILLIAN CHUNG) who's assigned to him to train in vampire bashing. But alas, why did she join up? Well, as it turns out, he's been her idol, love interest, and motivation to continue on since her parents were murdered by the dreaded toothy ones. Or so she says. EKIN's sister, HELEN (the other TWIN, CHARLENE CHOI) doesn't care much for GYPSY and her advances towards her older brother.

Meanwhile, over on the vampire front, big bad Euro blood sucker, DUKE DEKOTES (played by actor MICKEY HARDT) and his crew has shown up in Hong Kong in search of the last remaining vampire prince who holds the fabled vampire bible, "DAY FOR NIGHT", a book which will enable the undead bearer to walk in the daylight without harm. Enter our young vampire prince, KAZAF (played by actor EDISON CHEN), who along with his servant PRADA, (actor ANTHONY WONG) have decided to become passive vampires who option to drink manufactured bottled blood and not steal it by killing hapless human victims. They even set up house in a church to prove that they are indeed "New Age" vampires. KAZAF meets and ends up falling in love with HELEN (sister of the number one vampire stalker). Since true love can never be denied, the two start to date and through VERY creative methods, KAZAF manages to fool her into believing that he's a normal fellow until the inevitable truth surfaces. And as you can probably already predict, REEVES, GYPSY, HELEN, and DUKE DEKOTES all soon converge on KAZAF and company in what becomes a free-for-all battle with the most important treasures available for the winner to take.

With the basic story and plot said and done now, since normal people obviously don't possess the supra-strength needed to combat vampires in fisticuffs, the members of the LEAGUE drink small doses of vampire blood before battle. This allows them to temporarily obtain the necesary skills and attributes required to bring down those pesky blood suckers in all out battle. But when the scuffle's finally over, they need to drink an anti-serum that dissolves the vampiric effects. Of course, there will be times that the antidote isn't readily available and you better bet that our hero in question who drank the vampire blood will soon turn to the darkside and become a full fledged creature of the night. Secondly, the swords that the LEAGUE used were really cool. Almost like a bladeless lightsaber, the small handle could extend into a grappling cable or turn into a long bronze blade that would cut down any vampire in it's way. And the last point of curious interest involves KAZAF's spiffy coffin that includes a television, a computer, and stereo surround sound music speakers. Certainly an item that might upset any potential girlfriend, our prince only uses it on HELEN to demonstrate that he's in the funeral business and NOT in the undead business, which is a lie that's bound to come out sooner or later to his great dismay.





Well, I was really looking forward to this but I was slightly dissappointed. It really wasn't what I thought it was hyped up to be. So far, Hong Kong and Chinese movies are dissappointing me. Maybe I'm just picking out the duds............

I love Edison Chen (minus his scandal this year). I was really looking forward to this movie. I mean it was good but it just wasn't what I had hoped for. Hell, they even added Jackie Chan to this movie, which his bumbling parts were by far more enjoyable, didn't seem to make the movie any better.

I'm saddened. The stunts were kind of cool. The story really sucked. They needed more guts and less glory in this thing. There was just toooooo much happening on the outside of the story than on the guts of the story. There was soooo much there but they just ignored it. I really think they should have made two movies of this. One story about Reeves and one about Kazaf.

Ah well. I just tried watching the Twins Effect 2. So far, it's boring. Ugh. I might try again. Maybe I'm just comatose from the Chinese dud movies I'm seeing lately..........and I need to recuperate.

Peace, Out!

Edison Chen


Ekin Cheng