A bunch of years ago I learned of a movie called The Twins Effect. It was a big budget summer action vehicle that pitted pop stars The Twins (Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung) against vampires. Its star power was padded with Edison Chen, Eking Cheng, and a special appearance by Jackie Chan. The movie was fun but shallow. It proved popular enough upon its release in 2003 that a sequel was quickly put into production. The result was The Twins Effect II, again starring The Twins and banking on their popularity. Joining them again are Edison Chen and Jackie Chan, they are joined by the likes of Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Donnie Yen. Quite the star-studded affair. The story has nothing to do with the first one but they are both rather fun in a simple way.
By now you are probably wondering why I am talking about these Twins Effect movies when this movie is called Blade of Kings. The answer is pretty simple, considering that the phenomenon of The Twins is a Hong Kong thing, those titles have no meaning in the United States, or at least very little. I know I had never heard of them prior to learning of the first movie. This being the case, the first film was released stateside as The Vampire Effect and the sequel was named for a primary part of the plot rather than the stars, taking the title Blade of Kings. To add a little anecdote to this, when I got my hands on this disk, I had no idea it was The Twins Effect II, I only discovered that when I was looking it up on IMDb.
As the movie opens, we are introduced to a fantasy world at some point in the past. The main city is ruled by an evil empress who does not like or trust men. Men are referred to as dumbbells and they are not allowed in the city. They are sold as slave labor for performing manual tasks and for having children with but they are not to be loved. One of the traders is named 13th Young Master (Charlene Choi) and her business is interrupted by a royal bodyguard named Blue Bird (Gillian Chung) who is in pursuit of a thief played by Edison Chen.
Article comments