The Twins Effect (2003)

 

 

The Twins Effect (2003) 

Release Date: 8 March 2003 (Hong Kong)
Quality: DVDRip.XviD
Language: Cantonese
Runtime: 88 min
Director: Dante Lam, Donnie Yen
Company: Emperor Multimedia Group (EMG), Million Channel Ltd.
Movie Info: IMDb
Cast: Ekin Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Edison Chen, Jackie Chan, Mickey Hardt, Josie Ho, Ricardo Mamood-Vega, Maggie Lau, Karen Mok
Genre: Action | Adventure | Comedy | Horror
Watch: Trailer
Size: 699MB

Plot: If there's any doubt left that the diminutive duo of Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung have taken over Hong Kong, then this film should dispel it. Ostensibly, The Twins Effect is an action-comedy about a couple of vampire-killing cuties, with timeouts for comedy and romance, some kickass kung-fu choreography by Donnie Yen, and a mega-publicized cameo by Jackie Chan. In reality, it's the Emperor Multimedia Group's marketing masterstroke, a 100-minute commercial for their resident pop superstars The Twins and associated other properties (Ekin Cheng, Edison Chen, etc.). It was also Hong Kong's highest-grossing film of Summer 2003, and the movie on which the hopes of many HK Cinema fans have been placed.

So does it live up to the hype? Well, the easy answer is: No. The Twins Effect does not reinvent the wheel, nor does it create a fantastic new genre of special effects Hong Kong movies. The fighting contains obvious wirework, the acting is full of egregious highs (nearly the entire cast overacts at certain moments) and annoying lows (Edison Chen's "cool" act borders on comatose), and the film's comedy can be unfunny and even sophomoric. Those hoping that the The Twins Effect will herald in a new era of HK commercial cinema could be disappointed. But when actual filmmaking aspirations get stripped away, something rather amusing and even fun is left. The Twins Effect has popstar panache to spare, and even though it fails to be anything but a commercial piece of crap, fun can be had.

The Twins star as a couple of cute young things, but we don't even get to see them until twenty minutes in. Nope, the first twenty minutes of the film are spent educating the viewers in the intriguing (not) backstory of the made-to-order Twins Effect world. Apparently, there is a "League" of elite vampire hunters who rely on vampire blood to provide them with the power to take down the undead. Among them is Reeve (Ekin Cheng), a dashing hunter who loses his partner/lover Josie Ho in the film's opening moments. Depressed, he vows never to fall in love with his partner again. Sudden idea: why not get a male partner? (lovehkfilm)