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Review
by Kozo: |
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?
Meanwhile, vampire royalty
Prince Kazaf (Edison Chen) moves into a church somewhere
in Hong Kong with attendant Prada (Anthony Wong).
There's apparently some inter-clan vampire strife
going on back in vampireland (or wherever these fiends
hail from). Kazaf happens to be a good vampire, who
only drinks blood from bottles, and doesn't suck from
the necks of victims. Never mind that the blood had
to come from somewhere (Kazaf's royal dad probably
does the killing and bottles the brew), Kazaf is a
character to be liked and sympathized with. He's nice,
sleeps in a dope tricked-out coffin, and is played
by Edison Chen. That mean's he's totally hot and ultra-sensitive
to the needs of teenybopper-type girls everywhere.
If all vampires looked like Edison Chen, victims would
be beating the door down to get to him.
And with that set up,
enter the main attraction: two pint-sized popstars
with more spunk and cuddliness than should be humanly
possible. Taller Twin Charlene Choi is Helen, the
sister to depressed vampire stalker Reeve, and a wacky
sort of a girl. When we first meet her she's giving
her ex-boyfriend (Chapman To, appearing in his 300th
Hong Kong film of the year) hell. Luckily she meets
Kazaf, who immediately takes a shine to her. The two
begin an odd courtship, hampered by the fact that
Kazaf is suspiciously averse to sunlight and has other
odd habits like drinking blood. You'd think the sister
to a vampire hunter would have some clue where all
this is going, but strangely Helen has no idea. Yes,
the screenwriters possess ungodly power.
At the same time, Reeve
gets a new partner: Gypsy, played by shorter Twin
Gillian Chung. Like Helen, Gypsy is a character that
could only exist in the movies. She signs up to work
with the dashing Reeve because he's the hottest vampire
hunter around, and besides, he has amazing hair. Reeve
doesn't want to fall in love with his partner again,
but how could he not? This is a Twin we're talking
about. Even more, Gypsy wants to tend to Reeve's every
need, i.e. cleaning, cooking, and acting like little
Missy Homemaker. It could be every young man's dream.
So where does this all
lead us? Well, nowhere really, but there are two major,
major events in the offing. One: the girls will one
day team up to fight vampires themselves, which promises
for major buttkicking and wirework courtesy of Donnie
Yen. This plotline proves to the "important"
one, as an evil western vampire (Mickey Hardt) shows
up in Hong Kong to snake Kazaf's hide. Apparently,
taking out the hottest vampire ever is the only way
to lay one's hands on "Day for Night", an
ancient book which gives great power, or something
like that. That's the mega-conflict that leads to
the film's blowout final action sequences, involving
wirework, cute screaming fits, and lots of semi-convincing
stunt doubles.
But it's the second
conflict which should get everybody's blood boiling.
That's right: the Twins must take on each other! Midway
through the film, there's a battle royale between
Gypsy and Helen over—get this—a teddy bear!
The girls go wushu wacko on each other and unleash
a flurry of wire-enhanced moves and gravity-defying
acrobatics. They also pause to pout, mug, and taunt
each other with funny faces. To some people, this
display of cute ass-kicking would probably be the
cinematic equivalent of armageddon, but there's also
something amusing and even winning about the whole
thing. Say what you will about the Twins' talent,
but they've got something—call it cuddly charisma
or sweet screen presence—that makes them wholly
watchable. It's like witnessing a blowout battle between
Hello Kitty and Kerokeropi. Sure, it's silly and totally
preposterous, but it's just so damn cute. No matter
who wins, you'd like to give them both a hug.
Basically, it's popstar
power which saves The Twins Effect. Aside from
the Twins (who turn in effective, if not notable performances),
Ekin Cheng is likable and self-effacing as the "old"
popstar, and Anthony Wong and Josie Ho manage their
small parts well. Jackie Chan's cameo is more than
a little out-of-place, and probably could have been
done away with, but there's some amusement to his
minor turn as a harried groom, which is made all the
more fun thanks to a cameo from Karen Mok as the bride.
The good-natured silliness of the whole affair proves
somewhat charming, such that the bad screenwriting,
disjointed plotting, annoying music, egregious supporting
actors, and even Edison Chen don't seem to hurt much.
Which is pretty much
where we came in. The Twins Effect fails at
being an honest-to-god good film, and is as forgettable
as your average WB television show. But really, is
that what people came to see? If The Twins Effect came with any hype at all, it was that two cute girls
would be occupying the screen with their enormous
heads, and that there'd be some occasional fighting.
In that case, mission accomplished. The girls are
cute and there is fighting, and some of it is actually
pretty entertaining. If you are disappointed at The
Twins Effect, you could blame the filmmakers,
but if you paid to get in then you should really just
blame yourself. What could someone expect from a film
starring the Twins as vampire hunters and the rest
of the EEG stable as their co-stars? Did we expect
a good film? Or even a coherent one? If anything,
the film brandishes its marketing savvy effectively:
this is fluff starring a fluffy pop group, and it
breezes by fast enough that its essential weightlessness
doesn't seem to matter. And hey, at least it's not
mind-numbing, insultingly bad like, say, The Wesley's
Mysterious File. The Twins Effect is not
a good film, and it pretty much hangs all its marbles
on the photogenic charm of its terrible twosome. But
in some ways, that may be enough. (Kozo 2003) |
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