Main Cast: Zen Gesner, Adrian Paul, Bokeem Woodbine, Bai Ling
Release Year: 2001
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
One cop is a vampire and his partner is not in this unconventional thriller from director Michael Oblowitz. To help stop an evil plot that would integrate vampires into normal society, a pair of FBI agents must stop an evil fanged fiend. Matters are complicated when the human officer begins to fall for a sexy female vampire. Adrian Paul (Highlander: Endgame) stars as the good vampire agent. Bokeem Woodbine plays his partner. Bai Ling portrays the vampire seductress Lucy. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
Review
Though hardly a cinematic tour de force, this enjoyable genre entry uses vampire mythology as a springboard to deconstruct the mechanics of cops-and-robbers buddy movies. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in film studies to see the relationship between a black human police detective and his white vampire sidekick as a comment on Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, and their ilk. Fortunately, the script, by Ruth C. Fletcher and Christos N. Gage, has enough other interesting ideas -- or at least interesting combinations of secondhand ideas -- to keep the flick from growing tiresome after this initial premise has been established. Long on retro-futurist atmosphere (it was shot in Budapest) and short on coherent plotting, The Breed does suffer somewhat from its tendency to throw these ideas at the wall to see which ones stick. But viewers sympathetic to the limits of the film's genre and budget will appreciate the valiant attempt to take the vampire mythos in new directions. And Bai Ling -- an actress known less for her resumé than for the attention-grabbing outfits that regularly land her in the Fashion Police pages of Us Weekly -- may be the most outré fanged seductress since Grace Jones strutted her stuff in Vamp. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
The Breed was a 2001 horror film with an estimated budget of 4 million dollars.
The film features a dystopic future in which vampires are a marginalized race living in formerly Jewish ghettos, often shot in actual abandoned Jewish ghettos. Another major influence in the look of the film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil (film)[citation needed].
Detective Stephen Grant (Bokeem Woodbine), in an unidentified, vaguely totalitarian future, investigates a series of strange murders; his partner is killed by a pale man in black who can survive bullet wounds and climb up walls like a reptile. After Grant reports the incident, his superiors introduce him to another officer, Aaron Gray (Adrian Paul). Grant learns that a separate species of vampires exists -- Gray is one of them -- and plans to gradually integrate themselves with the rest of humanity. One of these vampires is responsible for the murders and the other vampires want to help catch the perpetrator. Aiding the officers is a female vampire named Lucy Westenra (played by Bai Ling).
Lucy Westenra and Detective Grant, eventually become intimate lovers and this complicates the lives of the police officer and the beautiful female vampire as later circumstances seem to implicate everyone's hidden agenda, betrayal, and deception. All the various human and vampire characters seem to be up to something sneaky and questionable as the movie progresses.
In absolute secrecy, humans have created a virus that is capable of killing only vampires while leave humanity unharmed. The virus is made as a failsafe device, in case the plan to coexist between vampires and humans fails. Hidden in a veil of deceit, the elder vampire makes a cynical plan to eradicate humanity if they won't take the cure made from vampire blood, and become vampire themselves. The vampire leader believed that as long as humans and vampires remain separate races, there will always be conflict and warfare. He forces the creator of the vampire virus to alter the nature of the virus, making it deadly to humans and not to vampires. The virus creator, Government Dr. Fleming, didn't seem all that coerced into making a human biological weapon, as he wanted immortality and the Elder vampire was all too happy to manipulate him. Dr. Fleming pulled a gun and tried to eliminate the police officers when they discovered his collaboration with the vampire leader. The vampire leader killed Fleming to silence him when the plot started to unravel.
A renegade vampire resistance leader mistrusts human-vampire cooperation and would use any excuse to start his human-vampire war to determine who would control the world. On the government side, Seward also mistrusts coexistence and would later order government troops to set up an ambush to attack the vampire migrants, and the vampire police force escorting them.
Only due to the trust between the human police officers and their vampire allies is the deadly virus plot brought to an end. The sub plot of the vampire renegade leader and the overly zealous government agent Seward were also resolved without a bloody war. The high ranking government director ordered Seward to stand down his troops. It's also implied that the surviving vampire leadership reined in the wild vampire renegades with vampire police forces. Human Detective Grant and Vampire Officer Grey become permanent police partners at the end of the movie. Grant seemed to have become a romantic couple with Lucy Westenra, and even moved into her luxurious mansion.
