The Twins Effect (4 Stars)

This is a Chinese vampire comedy film co-directed by Dante Lam and Donnie Yen. The film's title might confuse western audiences. There is a brother and sister in the film, but they aren't twins. The film's title actually has nothing at all to do with the film. The reason for the title is that it stars Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung, the two members of a Hong Kong pop group called The Twins.

Reeve (Ekin Cheng) lives with his sister Helen (Charlene Choi) in Hong Hong. Reeve is a vampire hunter who works for the Anti-Vampire League, while his sister is still a student. After the death of his previous partner, the AVL sends Reeve a new partner, Gypsy (Gillian Chung). One of the world's five vampire princes, Kazaf (Edison Chen), is hiding in a church in Hong Kong. He's a good vampire who doesn't want to kill humans to feed, but that makes no difference to Reeve. All vampires must die. The problem is that Helen meets and falls in love with Kazaf. Reeve wants to kill Kazaf to protect his sister, so Helen turns to Gypsy for help, woman to woman. Alliances are formed when a rogue vampire arrives in Hong Kong with the intention of killing Kazaf in order to steal his essence and become a super-vampire, able to walk in the sunlight.

Considering that the film is at its core a promotional tool for a pop group it's remarkably good. I attribute it to Donnie Yen's skills as a director of action films, and also to Jackie Chan. Jackie only plays a relatively small part in the film, but according to an interview he was always on set for the action scenes, and he "helped out" whenever he thought he was needed. Charlene and Gillian had never previously done any action films, so they had to spend months training for the parts. This seems to have succeeded, because they have both gone on to make other action films.

The film's incidental music is a problem for me. The melody of "My heart will go on" plays several times in the romantic scenes. For me this song is so closely linked to "Titanic" that it sounds out of place being used in any other film. I'm surprised that the film didn't cash in on the Twins' popularity by letting them sing the film's theme song. Instead, Jackie Chan sings the song with backing vocals by the Twins. It's a good song though, more up beat that Jackie's usual music.

Once more, vampire mythology has been rewritten. These vampires don't need to be slain by wooden stakes, a metal sword is sufficient. They also seem to be susceptible to being kicked in the groin. They don't sparkle in the sunlight like Stephenie Meyer's vampires, they sparkle when they die. And what's with the five princes? We really need to have an international vampire conference. Authors and filmmakers from all over the world need to sign a document agreeing on what vampires are, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, and what variations are allowed. I hope that they will ban vampires from ever sparkling again.