Canon Decampment: Bobby A. Suarez

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They Call Her … Cleopatra Wong

Alternate Titles: Cleopatra Wong; Female Big Boss
Language: English
Year of Release: 1978
Director: Bobby A. Suarez (as George Richardson)
Screenwriter: Romeo N. Galang
From a story by Bobby A. Suarez
Producer: BAS Film Productions

Cast: Marrie Lee, George Estregan, Dante Varona, Johnny Wilson, Kerry Chandler, Franco Guerrero, Alex Pecate, Philip Gamboa, Danny Rojo, Bobby Greenwood, Jesse Lee, Joaquin Fajardo, Victor Romero, Joe Cunanan, Steve Havarro, Avel Morado, Romy Misa, Bernie Bernardo, Joe Canlas, Tony Castro, Mark Sherak, Clem Persons, Paul Mejares, Robert Mendez, Buddy Philipps, Don Gordon Bell, Robert Mallet, Skip Kriegel, Mike Youngblood, Bill James, John Stewart, Thunderboys Stuntmen, PIS Stuntmen

Instructed by Manila Interpol, Cleo hies off to Singapore to investigate the proliferation of fake currencies across the major ASEAN countries; she passes herself off as a counterfeiter so she could be picked up by a middleman. After subduing him and his goons, she’s then assigned to Hong Kong, to track the arrival of fake money in jars of strawberry jam. This leads her and her Interpol detectives to a convent in Baguio, where they attempt to uncover the mystery of why a religious order would engage in a global criminal operation.

Long appreciated more outside than within his home country, Bobby A. Suarez turned out to be just the right candidate to export for overseas film production. An ardent B-movie aficionado, familiar with the latest contrivances that popular entertainment had on offer, he lucked out with an assignment that enabled him, though on an apparently tight budget, to shoot in three countries with a large cast. The resulting poverty-row epic featured some of the wildest flights of imagination ever witnessed in a Filipino-directed action film, complemented by the wit and charm of Singaporean actress Marrie Lee, who was sharp enough to know that the entire enterprise shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but provides just the right amount of nimble-footed intensity to be able to foreground the work’s campy elements. Subsequent Suarez projects affirmed his belief in the transnational crime-control function of Interpol, but Cleopatra Wong marks the point right before his professional competence and influential outreach overpowered the several mésalliances that managed to proliferate in the present narrative.

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Red Roses for a Call Girl

Alternate Titles: The True Confession of Diana; Rose Tattoo
Language: English
Year of Release: 1988
Director & Screenwriter: Bobby A. Suarez
Producer: BAS Film Productions

Cast: Maria Isabel Lopez, Robert Marius, Werner Pochat, Julia Kent, Manfred Seipold, Amanda Amores, Pia Moran, Arnold Mendoza, Vangie Labalan

In Germany, a streetwalker named Marian gets abducted because she hasn’t been able to repay the money she owes her pimp, Ringo. The same woman, who now calls herself Barbara, reappears at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and makes the acquaintance of Klaus Timberg, who arrives because his profligate son, Peter, is given over to drag racing and nightlife. Klaus secretly hires a local sex worker, Diana, to induce his son to fall in love. As it turns out, Diana’s procurer is Ringo, who relocated to evade criminal prosecution in Germany. When Barbara, via Klaus, learns about this, she attempts to seek vengeance; Klaus’s predicament gets even more complicated when Peter discovers that Diana is really a sex professional.

The first notable element in Red Roses for a Call Girl is how it departs from the usual war-set or futuristic action (and even horror) material that foreign coproductions insisted on when they selected the Philippines as location for their film investment, in the wake of the initial success of the Marcos-era Manila International Film Festival. Opting for a loose reworking of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, Bobby A. Suarez instead devised a low-budget drama that nevertheless expands on the original’s themes of exploitation, familial bonds, and cross-cultural romance. The far-from-ideal production values and performances (excepting the native talents, unsurprisingly) accrue their own level of charm, the way that Third World ventures occasionally succeed in doing, in contrast with the Hollywoodish aspirations of the typical local productions of the period.

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Á!