Chin gei bin II: Faa dou dai zin

Twins Effect II is about a war between males and females. Nothing to do with vampires so why is it called a sequel? A strong cast of pretty boys and cute girls, this movie has a flawed storyline and badly done CG effects. Considering it is a 2004 movie, the special effects are unacceptable. Even Stormraiders and A Man Called Hero look better than this movie.

Only watch this movie if you are interested to see the poor virgin acting skills of 23 year old lead character, son of Jackie Chan. I wonder if the director was paid to cast him in the movie instead of the other way.

Mao points: 5/10

Last year's Twins Effect was surely one of the worst movies of the year, due to its corny dialouge, laughable action sequences and lack of plot. This year, it looks like Twins Effect 2 will have almost the same honour. Only the HK movie industry could manage to churn out nonsensical sequels one after another.

On to the plot: The leads, Twins play citizens of a kingdom in which men are slaves and women are the rulers. They help a guy fight the female emperor. End of story.

Nothing really makes any much sense in this movie, it suffers from the same faults as the first one. The saving grace is probably Jackie Chan's cameo, in which there is a brilliant fight sequence.

My recommendation: Only hardcore fans of Jacky Chan/Twins will watch this crap.

1/10

This film reminded me of Halloween 3. Remember? The third film that had nothing to do with the continuing storyline of Michael Myers. Thats pretty much what this film does... takes the same title from an entertaining first film and slaps it onto a film with a completely different story.

Apparently, the Twins Effect films are not supposed to have any continuity because it's just a franchise vehicle to market these popular HK twin celebrities. Which is sad, because the first film was entertaining. This film is just strange and more so comedic. In laymens terms, women have taken over the world and an evil woman sorcerer wants to change all the remaining men in the world into women as well. I honestly found myself fast forwarding a lot in this film because I kept getting so disinterested with the plot. Which upsets me because I love HK films and rarely do that. I even bought this film based on the fact I loved the first one... but I'm sadly selling it off. It's not that much of a keeper. This film has only one good scene, the cameo fight scene with Jackie Chan. Which you can find that entire fight online somewhere without having to watch this film.

My understanding was that Twins Effect 2 was changed from a proper sequel to the Twins' vampire-busting film to a period film because the (mainland) Chinese authorities wouldn't allow a film to be released that featured "supernatural" elements, such as vampires. I am a bit puzzled now though, because Twins Effect 2 features plenty of supernatural things - no monsters, but lots of magic powers and what-not (and prophecies of destiny etc). It's slightly reminiscent of The Stormriders, but less epic and vastly more juvenile smile.gif

Gillian & Charlene play "Dumbbell Traders" - women who trade in male slaves, in a land ruled by an evil queen where all men are slaves and love is outlawed. Jackie Chan's son and some gawky teenager play two such dumbbells, who come across an artefact that implies one of them might be the true king of the land - thus begins a quest, of sorts, and a love story. Aw, how sweet?

Charlene is in full on sassy mode again, whilst Gillian has the quieter, more serious role (again). The film makes it clear just how much Ah Gil has outgrown Ah Sa in every way - her acting and her appearance are much more mature, and I think the time for the Twins phenomenon must be running out. I think this is the debut film for Jackie Chan's son, and I'm sure nobody is at their best when they're thrust into a leading role for their first performance, but I have to say he comes off especially badly - he has zero acting ability or charisma, and he's sadly inherited his father's looks (but without the talent to compensate). Daniel Wu gives a fairly good performance, and Donnie Yen has presence as a character called "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon", but the only really great performance in the film is a hilarious cameo from Leung Ka Fai.

The film does have high production values, with some great sets and costumes, but they're kind of wasted on the juvenile story and direction. There was potentially a great film in here, but not with this cast and crew.

The film does have quite a few fight scenes, choreographed by Donnie Yen I would assume, since they rely heavily on over the top wirework and his personal favourite, digital stuntmen. There are some very innovative wire sequences, but the quality of the computer graphics is very poor, and the digital scenes are very unconvincing and unimpressive. The special effects in this film are actually worse than those in Stormriders. The action scenes also suffer from some major plagiarism - there are lots of moves and shots lifted from any number of Yuen Wo Ping films, which is to be expected from Donnie, but there are also a couple of shots ripped off blatantly from Ryuhei Kitamura's AZUMI. Does he really need to resort to that? Worse still, the highly anticipated Jackie vs Donnie fight is almost a remake of the Donnie vs Jet fight in HERO. How short does he think people's memories are?

All in all, Twins Effect 2 is not a good film - but it has moments that are enjoyable, especially if you think of it as a kid's film, which I guess you have to expect with a vehicle for Twins. Given the time and budget they had for making the film, it's somewhat unforgivable that they didn't do a better job though.

Another movie containing the world's most adorable twins -- as far as I'm concerned anyway...

Although I had expected better after seeing The Vampire Effect, The Huadu Chronicles is a fun romp, in the classic styles of old HK movies. The jokes are crude but funny.

As for fight scenes, the first action scene is horribly done. Charlene and Gillian don't put on a very good show, and it doesn't really have anything to do with the plot. The story starts to take shape however about 20 or 30 minutes in, and Charcoal Head and Block Head, are lovable characters.

Donnie Yen and Jackie Chan's fight scene doesn't work at all however. I don't know why they are even in the movie. It's drawn out, filled with either bad wire-work or bad cg effects making the characters do unrealistic flying. I don't dislike flying in other movies, but this was just done badly. It also doesn't contribute to the humor of the movie or the storyline at all.

Overall, see it when you've got a few hours to spare for some mindless fun. For the movie, I'd only give it a 6 out of 10.

As for Gillian Chung on the other hand, 10 out of 10 easy.