| The Twins! Who? Why, they're one of the biggest pop duos in all of Asia! They're not really twins but one thing they do have in common is they're both teeny tiny and cute as hell, and by now must be absolutely stinking rich. Over here, when popular musicians break into movies they're usually treated as a joke and get little respect, but in Hong Kong it seems to be more or less a requirement that musical success means you must get a few starring roles in movies. Its been happening for years: Alan Tam, Andy Lau, Leon Lai, Jackie Cheung, Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng, The Twins are just the next in a long line of multimedia performers. Up until now they've starred in gentle romantic comedies but this is Hong Kong, and they were bound to end up doing some action sooner or later. While pitching them against the fierce vampire is an interesting idea, this isn't even the slightest bit scary but will it at least be entertaining? Do we have two more Andy Laus or are we seeing a couple of Madonnas in the making?
Reese (Ekin Cheng - The Stormriders) is a member of the Anti-Vampire League as one of their top vampire hunters, sent out when need be to fight the deadly nocturnal menace in whatever form it takes. He and his partner Lila (played by the lovely Josie Ho) are waiting in a closed train station for their next quarry. A train pulls into the station and the two of them quaff tiny vials of vampire blood (which must be counteracted with an antidote within 90 minutes before they turn into vampires themselves) before heading into the fray, battling a group of European-style vampires rather than the traditional hopping vampires normally found in their part of the world. The hunters are armed with extendible swords which double as a sort of magic winch weapon, as metres of rope can be fired from the opposite end of the hilt for various purposes. A couple of vampires are killed during the attack until a new foe enters the fray, looking a lot more powerful he must be the ringleader. Reese and his partner launch into a pitch battle against this new fray and even manage to cut off one of the vampire's arms, but he's too powerful. Lila is mortally wounded and the vampires make their escape. Reese tells us via voice-over that he had been in love with her, and that after this episode he pledged never to fall in love with his partner again. Surely this won't have any significance later in the film will it?
Meanwhile, a young member of vampire royalty has moved to Hong Kong after an extended stay abroad. His name is Kazaf (Edison Chen), accompanied by the obligatory vampire chicks and his aide Prada (Anthony Wong!). He's just found his new home, an old church featuring gaudy neon-lit crosses, clearly the dreaded crucifix doesn't bother these denizens of the night. Kazaf is that increasingly prominent breed of vampire in modern culture, the wuss. He won't suck anybody's blood, and luckily for him his father sends him cases of blood every week. Prada doesn't really agree with this liberal vampire living Kazaf indulges in, but humours him nevertheless. The two of them go to a restaurant for a drink and a little while later a man comes for a meal with a date on his arm. It seems that his man is in fact going with a different girl and is taking some risk cheating on her this way, but as soon as his date mentions the other girl's name she appears out of nowhere. Here comes Helen (Charlene Choi), an impossibly, relentlessly cute young thing with no dress sense. She has rumbled her boyfriend's deceit and gives him a big speech about only she is allowed to dump him (typical bloody woman!) and that he must cut something off his person to make up for this terrible crime. One fingernail removal later and he runs away and Kazaf invites Helen to come sit with him clearly fascinated with her. She gives him part of her mobile phone number and leaves, leaving Kazaf eager to find her again and eventually he will. Meanwhile Reese goes to the airport to meet his new partner Gypsy (Gillian Chung) who is, of course, adorable and already seems to have a romantic interest in him as she got an earlier flight just so she could watch him wait for her. Okay, forget ‘romantic interest' and replace with ‘unhealthy obsession'.
Oh dear, Helen doesn't like Gypsy at all and a duel erupts between them on the roof of their home over a teddy bear. Helen calls Kazaf on his mobile phone to cheer herself up (must be good to know there is someone with an even smaller acting range than her) and they end up talking for hours while doing oh so cute things like ride scooters and jump up and down on trampolines while holding small dogs. Kasaf is besotted and agrees to meet her for a date during the day (really screenwriters, GREAT character to base this film around, I mean we're just feeling so much empathy with this nimrod) and ends up going to see her wearing as many clothes as possible and using a special sun cream Prada cooked up for him. They gatecrash a party where Jackie Chan and Karen Mok are the bride and groom with, *ahem*, hilarious results. Kazaf should be a little more careful as the powerful vampire that Reese fought at the start of the movie is causing trouble. He is in fact Duke Dekotes (Mickey Hardt), a member of the Vampire royal family. He has staged a coup and has attacked his own flesh and blood, looking to extract the Blood Essence from the six sons of the family which he can then use to open the sacred book of the vampires, a large metal-covered tome called ‘Day For Night'. This book contains the ultimate vampire secret, the ability to allow a single vampire to walk in the sunlight without being destroyed. Though its not really explained quite why this is such a terrible awful thing (at least not in the slightly confused English subtitles) beyond creating the first vampire who can get a tan, this is really bad news. It gets worse though as Dekotes already has five of the blood elements and, you've guessed it, Kazaf is the last stupidly named piece of the puzzle. Plus not only has Gypsy messed up what was about to be Reese's 124th vampire kill, but she gave him banana flavouring instead of the antidote for the vampire blood! Those crazy Twins!
Many feel that Hong Kong has sold out its roots and no longer represents what they always loved about the country and its films. This is a film industry which has gone through some changes since the mid-90's and has seen a greater shift towards mainstream money-grabbing features. As old stars like Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat are seen more in western pictures than those made in their homeland, Hong Kong's films have seen an increasing proliferation of pop stars and non-martial artist waif pretty boys and girls in its mainstream. The sort of pop star/actor we see in many films today, the Aaron Kwoks and Ekin Chengs, are largely being blamed for the state of Hong Kong pictures today and their move away from the classic films of the 70's, 80's and early 90's. However, could Hong Kong have truly stayed the same way forever? Film-savvy western audiences, largely tired of the same old Hollywood fare, lap up all the classic gunplay and martial arts films that Hong Kong has spewed forth in such great numbers for years. Take a moment, however, to consider the viewpoint of the Hong Kong audience. If you lived in Hong Kong and were bombarded with this style of film over and over again, would you not eventually get tired of it? Would you start staying home instead of going to see the sixth Once Upon a Time in China film? Why go watch the latest movie in the same style of The Killer when you've seen that formula flogged to death over and over again? Sad as it may be, the industry had to adapt and change to survive, as the styles of film we are familiar with just weren't making the same money anymore, but this is nothing new. Hong Kong has seen many changes over the years, Jackie Chan's classic comedies like Drunken Master were a natural progression from the more serious martial arts pictures pioneered by Bruce Lee. Then this style gave way in the 80's to less martial arts-oriented action films, and the heroic bloodshed genre, and then the early 90's saw the rise of elaborate wire-fu thanks to the success of Once Upon a Time in China. While this is a very general description its clear enough - the Hong Kong film industry has never stood still for more than a few years and all this innovation has come out of the need to continue making money. Lets not forget, also, that Hong Kong's popularity world-wide had grown immensely, and now they were in a position to compete with Europe and America in the international market. Everything is driven by money and whether you like it or not, Hong Kong has adapted the same way the film industry in any other country has. Its not always for the better, but the world would be a far less fun place if their industry had just grown stagnant and died. The Twins Effect might not be on a par with past greats, but it still has the feel of a Hong Kong film that can never be taken away, and I find great comfort in knowing no other country can make movies the way they do.
With many mainstream movies, the cast is going to be something of a hurdle. The casting for The Twins Effect is a major source of discussion and criticism, as the more talented members are shunted to one side in place of a group of photogenic but less than adept cast. The worst offenders are Charlene Choi and Edison Chen. As you might have guessed already, Charlene is extremely cute, and she certainly brings a cute charm to her character. Well, she does for about ten minutes before she starts to get tiresome and the realisation dawns that apart from being cute she brings nothing else to the table. Her performance becomes little more than her bouncing around excitedly or pouting and grates terribly, making Shu Qi look like Meryl Streep in comparison. Perhaps less offensive but even more terrible is Edison Chen who only exists to have trendy spiky hair, however he and Charlene take up an embarrassing amount of screen time and have no chemistry. He is a vacuum of personality, as blank as an untouched canvas only not as entertaining, with only the vaguest of interest aroused in his character because of his connection with the fiendish Duke Dekotes. Less bad are Ekin Cheng and Gillian Chung and should have had more screen time than they did. This scribe has always had a soft spot for Ekin Cheng despite his not being an especially good actor and he's perfectly functional here, the role isn't terribly demanding and he does a reasonable job. He even manages to have just a tiny amount of on-screen chemistry with the second Twin Gillian Chung, who is quite easily the better actress of the pop duo. Less cutesy but more attractive for it, Gillian portrays a couple of actual proper emotions rather than just various shades of cute. She's still got a long way to go, but she shows a great deal more promise than her partner in pop and there is definitely something to build on there. On the other hand it's a shame that performers like Anthony Wong, Josie Ho, and Jackie Chan are mere supporting characters, and Mickey Hardt looked great as Dekotes too, possessing a great deal of martial arts skill. The writing does not help things, putting too much emphasis on the flat and irritating ‘relationship' between Helen and Kazaf (exposing their one-dimensional performances in the process) at the expense of the action and the impending arrival of Duke Dekotes, and the middle section of the film drags as a result. These two points highlight the under-achievement of the main cast and is what makes their presence in this film unbearable for many, and its difficult to disagree in some cases.
The film is not a total loss thanks to some good production values, and some nifty direction. First off, Dante Lam and his crew bring a crisp, glossy look to the film with some snappy editing that looks cool and takes advantage of the sets and locations used without getting in the way of the action. The soundtrack fits things well too, with some grandiose, vaguely Jerry Goldmith-ish orchestral moments and some well-placed techno which suits the pace of the action without causing a distraction. The computer graphics are pretty good too with some nice effects where distant vampires are scaling buildings and jumping out of sight, and there's an extremely cool moment where shattered stained glass spreads out across a room which looked extremely effective. Perhaps most importantly however, for all the non-martial artists involved the action is fun and engaging thanks to Donnie Yen's action direction. For the most part a great balance is struck between using the actors themselves up close or doing a handful of simple techniques, to wider shots where expert doubles jump in to take over on the more complex and acrobatic stuff. This does occasionally look a little jarring as a character fighting will suddenly double in speed once you can only see the back of their head, but nevertheless it allows for some fast-paced and flashy action scenes that don't look out of place and silly, which is always a risk in this sort of movie. Ekin Cheng does especially well in one fight scene where he takes on a single vampire seeming to do a lot himself, though compared to the other main cast members he's an old hand at this sort of thing now. The Twins do okay too though are doubled frequently, and while they don't look too capable of taking on vampires the way they do, its no different from the acclaimed Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But really, this is a film that is not meant to be taken seriously and this is made especially obvious early in the movie when Helen and Gypsy fight over a teddy bear. Their duel focused on the toy and then their showdown using long bamboo staffs is never going to win any awards but was tremendous fun to watch, and part of the reason for it, in this humble scribe's opinion, was more to do with who was involved rather than how technically proficient their fight was. This film is out to give the viewers a good time and while this leads to some typical (for Hong Kong) cheesy humour that doesn't travel too well, there is still plenty to enjoy as long as you can let go, something that us Hong Kong movie fans can have trouble doing on occasion. Come on, you know I'm right.
This film is telling us to just sit back, switch your brain off and have a good time, so why not? Hollywood is guilty of some very blatant attempts to make money by merely throwing as many stars into a film as possible and adding the same tired elements other films had already done before in the lazy hope that people will want to see it all again. Hong Kong films are rarely that lazy and while The Twins Effect is very guilty of using vapid mainstream stars, one would have to be pretty cynical not to recognise the great effort made here to provide a good-natured and entertaining film. While not entirely successful here, in most cases I would still take mainstream Hong Kong output over the dross that comes out of Hollywood every year. While The Twins Effect isn't channelling Once Upon a Time in China or Encounters of the Spooky Kind, its entertaining on its own merits and that's all we can ask for. Not great, but darn good fun all the same. |
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