Directed by Cory Yeun and Patrick Leung, Blade of Kings (aka Twins Effect 2) takes place in an ancient mythological land where men are slaves to the women and love is forbidden. Ruled by an oppressive evil empress (Qu Ying), there is a prophecy that states the one boy will find Excalibur and, with its mighty power, return the throne to men. To avoid this prophecy from coming to fruition, the empress sends out her attractive female warriors to hunt down those that fit the prophecies description.
On the flip side of things, brothers Charcoal Head (Jaycee Chan—Jackie Chan’s Son) and Blockhead (Chen Po-lin) are working with their foster father (Tony Leung Ka-fai)in a travelling show when one of their friends gives them a stone with a map on it. They set out on the quest to find the treasure and are eventually accompanied by two attractive but strong women, one looking for wealth named 13th Young Master (Charlene Choi) and the other being the Empress’s henchwoman named Blue Bird (Gillian Chung). While on their quest they meet Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Donnie Yen) who is the protector of the prophetic boy and is the man leading the fight against the evil empress.
Firstly, I have to give the movie some respect for not taking itself seriously at all. I wasn’t expecting this flick to be as goofy and romantic as it was, nor was I expecting it to have some ridiculous looking girl on girl fight scenes that came off more like choreographed dance numbers. It is definitely a very local film and one that, I think, can only be really truly appreciated by Asians. Maybe it was just me but I couldn’t buy into its crazy quirky story and odd blend of CGI. The flick had women pretending to be men by simply wearing moustaches and then the guys would hit on the girls while they had these ‘staches on, I didn’t understand what exactly was happening. I guess the guys were really looking past the ‘stache and taking in the rest of their beauty. Also, why is it that nobody ever has real names random Hong Kong films, I never understood that.
The only reason I was interested in seeing the film is because Donnie Yen and Jackie Chan were going to be in it. I may not have known what it was about as I sat down to watch it but their presence was enough to get me that far. This leads me to the one major downside of the film and that is Donnie Yen has a very small role. Most of his screen time 
comes at the end when he is fighting Jackie Chan, which is a scene every martial arts fan has to see and probably the only real reason to actually see this film.
The Blu-ray/DVD bonus features includes a few trailers, a music video and a 12 minute “making of” featurette which has each of the main actors explaining the plot of the film and offering up some details about their character and how they evolve throughout the story. The featurette also includes shows some behind the scenes footage of a few of the fight scenes which includes how some of the wire work was done and both the directors explaining their take on the film and action. Lastly, there is also an explanation of the special effects stating how they wanted them to have a local flavor and utilized manga and comics for inspiration. They had 60 animators working on the flick which shows just how effects heavy this picture actually was.
Blade of Kings is a mythological Chinese flick that I think would be considered a romantic action comedy, much like Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The actors had some great chemistry and the major fight scene between Yen and Chan makes the movie worth watching but if you aren’t a fan of either of theirs or aren’t curious to see how Jackie Chan’s son fared in his first acting performance then I’d suggest skipping this one.
Blade of Kings is now available on Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and DVD from Well GO USA
PS apologies for not reviewing the Blu-ray, I had some issue with my player recently but am in the process of replacing it.
Movie Review: A cheesy action rom-com tailored for a very specific audience (4/10)
DVD Review: 5/10
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