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Badlis sa Kinabuhi
English Translation: Line of Life
English Title: Hand of Fate
Alternative English Title: Destined
Language: Cebuano
Year of Release: 1968 / B&W
Director: Leroy Salvador
Screenwriters: Junipher (Leroy Salvador & Gloria Sevilla)
Producer: MG Productions
Cast: Gloria Sevilla, Mat Ranillo Jr., Frankie Navaja Jr., Felix de Catalina, Danilo Nuñez, Martha Dee, Aurora Villa, Siux Cabase
Celia lives a peaceful life with her husband Domeng and their son Lito. The only thorn in her side is her foster father Simon, who disapproves of her marriage because of his lust for her. When Simon’s incestuous behavior goes too far, Celia kills him. But this traumatizes Lito and leads Domeng to abandon her. As Celia’s trial unfolds, her fate hangs in the balance.
Philippine cinema must have been granted a much-needed stroke of luck in that even in a degraded pre-restored state,[1] the fullest available single sample from early regional production has turned out to be one of our best commercial films ever. This will be news mainly for Manila-centrified observers, since Badlis sa Kinabuhi is not only fondly remembered among elderly Cebuano audiences, it was also the first Filipino feature to screen at the Berlin International Film Festival. Director Leroy Salvador must have picked up insight and inspiration from the several genres he appeared in as an LVN Pictures performer; surrounded by practitioners who were out to prove themselves equal to Manila’s output, he and they managed the tricky balance between heavy melodrama and judicious humor, with a genuinely involving race-against-time finale. Gloria Sevilla, a rare instance of a popular figure who also encompasses folk-artist significance, combines strong presence with skilled delivery—enough to make her plight sympathetic even to those who barely understand the language.
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Beloved
Year of Release: 1985
Director: Leroy Salvador
Screenwriter: Orlando Nadres
Based on the komiks by Nerissa Cabral
Producer: Viva Films
Cast: Nora Aunor, Hilda Koronel, Christopher de Leon, Dindo Fernando, Deborah Sun, Fred Montilla, Virginia Montes, Metring David
After a friendly encounter on a flight to Manila, Adora and Renée meet again when Adora’s boyfriend Dindo lands a job at the company owned by Renée’s father. Renée also succeeds in hiring Adora as her secretary. Due to her attraction to Dindo, Renée quickly promotes him, which angers sly sales manager Ver. What follows is a chain of events fueled by lust, betrayal, revenge, and greed for power.
Those who regard Nora Aunor’s populist persona as necessarily opposed to the original Viva Films’ house image (mainly represented by glossy melodramas) will find their logic challenged by this offbeat entry. Rather than bring up the expected gender issues, the movie superimposes the characters’ class dynamics and observes how gender differences play out within this framework. The central quartet of mature performers ensures that the sudden shifts in character behavior turn out to be revelations rather than inconsistencies, and intensify the tugs-of-war with just the right balance of charm and deviousness, so that it becomes impossible to pinpoint a definitive winner among all four of them once the dust has settled.
Note
[1] The 2015 Cinema Rehiyon festival featured as opening film a basic digital remastering of the available print, the closest we might ever be able to get at present to the original screening.
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