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| THE TWINS EFFECT. Starring - Charlene Choi - Gillian Chung - Ekin Cheng - Edison Chen. Director - Dante Lam. 2003. In the years since my conception I have seen literally hundreds of Vampire movies (well ok about 20 but hundreds sounded better). Ahem, anyway the majority of these have contained some basic elements. Like vampires sucking blood, blokes with big pointy sticks and sex, lots and lots of sex. This is probably the main reason that vampire movies are deemed more appropriate for the male market. So then why in the hell does this feel like a chick-flik? Is it because instead of seeing blood dribbling, sex starved, creatures of the night we are treated to some uninspiring and quite frankly disturbing character development plots. Oh yes with a pinch of comedy/romance thrown in to boot! Fuck comedy/romance, fuck it to damnation! I want sex and blood and gratuitous violence with my vampires not cute pop stars with clean clothes. Fair enough you get some quality action sequences and quite good choreography but you don’t even get to see one nipple shot. Fair enough Edison Chen bares a breast in the name of cinema but this simply doesn’t count. Well not in my case anyway. Ever heard of the Twins? No, well neither had I before viewing this and hopefully I won’t be seeing them again anytime soon. I am reliably informed that the Twins referred to in the title are a superstar pop phenomenon comprising of Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung. Don’t quote me if I am wrong and don’t write in neither because honestly, I don’t give a fuck who these two are. Anyway these twins (I don’t think they are really twins, but I know a good gynaecologist who could confirm my suspicions) form part of a specialised vampire hunters club. Their only goal in life is to spear the aforementioned bloodsuckers; alas they are pretty crap at this and rely heavily on outside influences in achieving their goals. Mainly in the shape of Ekin Cheng. Right from the beginning we are inspired by Ekins manliness and downright unquestionable authority. ’Dangerous work is for men’ he says and off he trots to commence battle. Gripping stuff it isn’t. The story is nothing more than a shambolic attempt to rip off the US smash Blade, but instead of actually giving some substance towards the plot we are instead treated to a photo shoot of magnanimous proportions. Even Jackie Chan turns up to bring in a few extra dollars, very astute marketing and worthy of one star for this feat alone. Now every movie must have at least one redeeming factor (Uzumaki aside) and the fun here comes in the shape of Donnie Yen. Almost certainly pissed off with his bit-part in Blade 2 Donnie must have jumped at the chance to try and redeem himself in the vampire world. Ironic really that when somebody does finally give him a chance to break the global market he is so underused he is forgettable at best. Anyway Donnie does a fantastic job choreographing the tremendous looking fight scenes. In old school style stuntmen are thrown around like stranded seal pups through glass, wood and steel. The only thing missing here is the good old-fashioned kitchen sink. As is the norm these days the majority of the fights have been CGI enhanced and it does actually work quite well. At times it’s a bit over the top but the quick cuts and fast kicking mean you don’t really spend anytime pondering there over-use. As far as vampire movies go this is right down there with Jon Bon Jovis Vampires 2 and is best left well alone. However if you are a fan of good choreography then go rent this but be prepared for some serious drivel in-between the good stuff. 4****stars. |
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