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Underworld is a 2003 film depicting a thousand-year blood feud between vampires and lycans in the modern-day world.

Plot[]

Beginning at night during a downpour, Selene, a vampire, tells of how six-hundred years ago, Lucian, the leader of a clan of lycans, had been killed, but the war raged between lycans and vampires raged on. Selene is a Death Dealer, a vampire trained to hunt and kill lycans, and has been after revenge for the murder of her family by the lycans.

During a shootout in a subway station, Selene discovers that the Lycans she and two other Death Dealers were pursuing were following a human, which is viewed as being unusual by the vampire regent of the coven that houses the vampires, Kraven: "Other than food, why would lycans stalk a human?"

Selene's suspicions are proven true when she goes to the man's apartment and the lycans show up to capture him. His name is Michael Corvin, and he's an intern at the hospital. While trying to escape from the lycans, he encounters a man that's with the lycans, Lucian, and he bites him before Selene can get to him.

After surviving a car crash due to Selene being injured by Lucian and passing out at the wheel, Michael saves Selene and pulls her to safety before passing out. Selene revives and takes Michael back to the mansion, which upsets Kraven, who disregards her belief that the lycans are after a human for something other than food.

Michael escapes when he wakes up to the sight of one of the vampires living in the mansion and seeks help from a friend of his at the hospital. Selene's friend, Khan, a weapons master, copies a form of bullet used by the lycans to kill vampires with a lethal dose of silver nitrate and once administered into the bloodstream, the lycans die within a few minutes, unlike the previous bullets they used that damaged their organs. Violating the rules of her coven, Selene awakens the elder vampire, Viktor, to inform him of what she knows.

Michael, upon learning that some police (actually two lycans disguised as police) are after him, returns to the vampire mansion to speak with Selene, who takes him to a safehouse and informs him of what is going on and her own involvement in the war between vampires and lycans (werewolves). Upon discovering that Lucian is still alive and that Kraven lied about killing him, Selene wants to know why Lucian is after Michael.

Upon returning to the mansion, Selene discovers from the revived Viktor that he doesn't believe her that Lucian is alive (this is due to her memories being incoherent to him, as well as being awakened a full century ahead of schedule, as it is Markus' turn to reign the coven after Amelia, who is on her way to awaken him). Selene will be judged by the elders, but must be confined to the mansion. Upon feeling spiteful because of Kraven's obsession to have Selene to himself, the vampire seductress Erika shuts down the power to the mansion and helps Selene escape (she claims she's helping herself). Selene returns to the safehouse to retrieve Michael, but comes under attack by lycans that capture him. However, she is able to capture a lycan scientist, Singe, who confirms her suspicions about the lycans' interest in Michael. She returns to the mansion with him and forces him to reveal the conspiracy.

Singe reveals that the lycans have been trying to combine the two races to create hybrids, but have been unable to do so due to their genetics being incompatible. However, they realized the way to succeed was to locate a human belonging to a rare bloodline belonging to Alexander Corvinous, a Hungarian warlord that lived around the fifth century when a plague destroyed his village. Somehow, he survived and became immortal, later having two sons that inherited his immortality, but they mutated when one was bitten by a bat and the other bitten by a wolf, resulting in both vampires and lycans having a common ancestor. While a descendant of Corvinous is affiliated with the vampires, confirmed to be Markus, the lycans can't use his blood; they required an untainted source, related to Corvinous' third child, and located humans that might've been related to him, eventually finding Michael. With his blood, the union between vampire and lycan is possible.

Viktor, however, refuses to allow such a union to come to pass, as it would endanger the coven. But Singe declares that Lucian will succeed once he has procured vampire blood to combine with Michael's blood, but Viktor claims that Lucian is dead, but when Singe questions the validity of the claim, they discover that Kraven has fled the mansion, confirming Selene's proof that Lucian is alive.

Viktor kills Singe and sends the Death Dealers to the lycan den where they're hiding to kill all of them, including Michael (to prevent the union between the two species).

In the den, Michael meets Lucian and learns from his memories that the war between vampires and lycans began when Viktor murdered his daughter, Sonja, in front of Lucian, who escaped and declared revenge on Viktor. This is verified by Lucian, who explains that the lycans were enslaved by the vampres to serve as their protectors during the day, but even as a servant, he didn't hate them, as Sonja was his lover. Because Viktor feared a blending of the two species when he learned that his daughter was pregnant, he had her killed to keep the two races separate, so Lucian intends to transform himself into a hybrid of lycan and vampire and end the war.

Kraven arrives and warns Lucian that Viktor's forces will be inbound to kill them, but Lucian isn't worried. He assures Kraven that once Viktor has been killed, he will have control over the two vampire covens representing the old and new worlds and a peace treaty with the lycans, as the lycans destroyed the council and entourage accompanying vampire elder Amelia, who was bled to death for her blood by Lucian's right hand man, Raze, so that Lucian could use her blood to complete his transformation into a hybrid. The Death Dealers show up and both sides engage in battle. While Selene separates from the vampires to locate Michael, Kraven betrays Lucian and shoots him with silver nitrate, leaving him for dead, Raze, upon finding Lucian, kills Soren, and Viktor later kills Raze.

Selene finds Michael and attempts to get him out of the den, but Kraven finds them and, in a fit of jealousy over the fact that Selene wouldn't return his infactuation over her, shoots Michael, causing him to suffer from the silver nitrate coursing through his bloodstream. Selene says she hopes that she'll live long enough to see Vikto kill Kraven for his treachery, but Kraven reveals that it was Viktor that killed her family, not the lycans; simply because he couldn't abide by his own laws and live off the blood of livestock, Viktor would go out every now and then and engorge on human blood, but he couldn't kill Selene because she looked like his daughter. Selene doesn't believe him, and Lucian, who is still alive, stabs Kraven in his leg, injuring him, and then tells Selene to bite Michael; recalling what Singe had stated earlier about how a hybrid of vampire and lycan would be stronger than either member of the two species are alone, and so she does bite him, transmitting the vampire virus to him.

Viktor arrives and sees Selene biting Michael and questions her actions. But Lucian declares that, while he might be dead, his goal has been achieved nonetheless, and Viktor kills him and casts Michael aside, unaware that he is already changing as a result of being bitten by two different species.

Selene demands to know the truth from Viktor, and he confirms that he did kill her family. While explaining from his point of view why he killed his daughter, Michael mutates into a blue-skinned, lycan-like creature with human features. He engages Michael, who seems untouchable, able to move at superhuman speed and is invulnerable to silver bullets, but Viktor, due to his centuries of fighting, is able to overpower Michael. Just when he is about to kill Michael, Selene takes his sword and cuts Viktor's head in half.

The lycans remaining in the den see Viktor has died and leave, as Selene isn't an enemy to them right now. Michael has returned to human form and Selene picks up the pendent Lucian had that originally belonged to Sonja, and she and Michael leave the lycan den.

Meanwhile, back in the vampire coven mansion, Singe's blood has spilled onto the floor and seeped into Markus' tomb. Selene informs that the events of the night's violence between vampires and lycans will reverberate through the halls of both vampire covens due to her involvement in the death of one of the two vampire elders that were killed. Once Markus awakens, Selene will be hunted by her own kind. In his tomb, Markus awakens and his eyes turn dark, indicating that he has become a hybrid like Michael.

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