A Hong Kong kung fu vampire film where a vampire noble is killing off the princes in order to gain the power to walk in the daylight. When the sister of a vampire hunter falls for a vampire prince, it is only a matter of time before the hunter, his assistant, and sister will be facing the noble.
The Vampire Effect is frustratingly close to being a good film. Some movies are good. Some just suck. What really irritates me are the ones that should have been good, that could have been worthwhile with just a bit of smart editing. On the good side, The Vampire Effect is filled with kung fu action and plenty of vampires. A scene where the two girls take out a small vampire army was as good as the work in Blade. The main villain is properly evil (though not fleshed out enough) and the FX wizard-type duel is exciting. Plus, some of the jokes are funny. But that’s where it falls apart. Some of the jokes work, but most fail. It’s as if whenever they couldn’t think of something funny, they just told the actors to make a face or fall down or act like a young teenager. There are a lot of these “young teenager” moments, which is troubling as the characters involved are in their mid twenties. Also, while the fight scenes look good, a majority have some overdone, blatant wirework where it doesn’t look like the character did a superhuman move, but rather swung about on an invisible wire. Oh well, that’s annoying, but not on the level of the twenty year olds acting like they are thirteen. Jackie Chan puts in an appearance, and is OK, though even he has a rather pathetic wire move. This film could have been a good (or at least enjoyable) kung fu adventure film with just a bit of editing. Or it could have been an amusing comedy (with some re-shooting). But it never decides. There’s a tragic death that should cause some emotion in the viewer, but as it fits so poorly with the silliness that came before, I was left gawking at the screen.
A longer, non-dubbed version goes by the title The Twin Effect.