Vampire Effect (2003)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Jack Ng
Directed by Dante Lam
Starring Ekin Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Edison Chen, Mickey Hardt, and Jackie Chan

Features:

• Cantonese and English language tracks
  
• English, French, and Spanish subtitles
  

Released by: Columbia Tri-Star
Region: 1
Rating: R
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Kung-fu die-hards will want to rent it.

Something is rotten in the state of vampire-dom. Eurotrash vampire Duke Dekotes (Hardt) is scouring the globe of other vampire princes in an attempt to find a vampire bible that will provide him with Real Ultimate Power. Meanwhile, a league of vampire hunters, who drink vampire blood to gain bursts of superhuman ability, is losing members left and right. Vampire Hunter Reeve (Cheng) loses his romantic interest/hunting partner in a spectacular opening fight sequence in a train station, and vows to never fall for his partner again. So of course, his next assigned partner is Gypsy (Chung), a cute young thing who asked for the assignment because she thinks Reeve is hot and has good hair (I'm not making this shit up).

Reeve's sister Helen (Choi) is, at the same time, falling for a new bishie-boy in town, Kazaf (Chen), who just happens to be a vampire prince, and may hold the key that Duke Dekotes is murderously searching the globe to find. Kazaf's a good vampire, see, and you can tell because he drinks blood from bottles and calls Helen to flirt and giggle on the phone in some bizarre regressive pre-teen courtship ritual writ large and silly. With these two relationships in place, hijinks can ensue. Lots of fighting, vampires squaring off with their own kind, and a rooftop kung fu battle between Helen and Gypsy over a teddy bear (no, really...I couldn't make this shit up).

The thing to appreciate about Vampire Effect (originally released in Hong Kong as The Twins Effect) is that it is intended as an action-comedy. To add credence to this claim, the filmmakers throw in a few forgettable scenes with cameos from Jackie Chan (which also presumably helped ticket sales). Another thing one must understand going in is that the entire film is essentially an advertisement for Emperor Multimedia's talent stable, most notably the "Twins" Choi and Chung, aspiring pop-idol phenoms. Jamming every actor whose career they're trying to launch into one film may not have been the most effective marketing tool, however. The script here is as thin as it gets, the "acting" so over the top and ham-fisted as to be painful to watch in places, and the film as a whole an utterly forgettable exercise.

It's not all bad, though. The opening fight sequence in the train station is excellent, and despite the goofy premise, the rooftop battle between the twins is a nice piece of fight choreography (courtesy of the immensely talented Donnie Yen). The humor isn't particularly humorous, and the courtship nonsense between Kazaf and Helen is sheer agony unfolding on the screen, but Jackie Chan's cameos make for a few solid comedic moments. The special effects show off the budget handed out on this flick, and likely has a lot to do with making it the highest grossing film in Hong Kong in 2003. Of course, it's equally likely that the prominent display of Jackie Chan's face on the posters had a lot of people believing this was one of Chan's own vehicles, rather than a ten-minute cameo wrapped in ninety minutes of mediocre fluff.

The DVD contains nothing but the film itself, with a variety of audio and subtitle options. The English dub is mediocre, but I'm not convinced one gains much watching it subtitled. For viewers outside of Hong Kong, it would have been nice to see some sort of background on the "Twins" themselves, and it would've gone a long way towards making sense of the tremendous marketing push this film received. I'd also like to see more HK flicks throw us a bone regarding behind-the-scenes features. Donnie Yen is one of the most phenomenal fight choreographers working today (and a martial arts star in his own right), and passing up a chance to give viewers a little insight into his particular genius behind the camera seems a shame.

So therefore, if you need some light, fluffy Fu action, you might want to rent this, but everyone else who doesn't like their ass-kicking watered down by giggling and teddy bears should flee.