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Ikasa Mo … Ipuputok Ko
English Translation: Cock [the Revolver] … I’ll Shoot It
Year of Release: 1990
Director: Augusto Salvador
Screenwriters: Rene Villanueva & Humilde “Meek” Roxas
Producers: OctoArts Films & Urban Films
Cast: Phillip Salvador, Eddie Garcia, Michael de Mesa, Maila Gumila, Sheila Ysrael, Dencio Padilla, Perla Bautista, Robert Talabis, Atong Redillas, Ricky Rivero, Bon Vibar, Dindo Arroyo, Romeo Rivera, Maylene Gonzales, Rommel Valdez, Eddie Arenas, Ernie Zarate, Johnny Vicar, Rene Hawkins, Ernie David, Usman Hassim, Robert Miller, Joey Padilla, Big Boy Gomez, Ding Salvador, Vic Belaro, Polly Cadsawan, Ernie Forte, Rey Solo, Eddie Tuazon, Belo Borja, Danny Labra, Danny Riel, Vic Belaro, Teddy Magera, Ernie David, Jimmy Reyes, Nemie Gutierrez, Joe Baltazar, Baldo Marro’s Boys
Guiller Sta. Romana makes sure to live an upright existence as a police officer, in honor of his father who died in the line of fire. His younger partner, Boboy Sanchez, just welcomed a newborn son and consequently feels some anxiety about making ends meet, considering the low salary that police personnel draw. Guiller makes sure to maintain civil relations with his father’s associates, since he suspects one of them betrayed his father to the gangsters who killed him. Ledesma, a crime lord annoyed by Guiller’s insistent inspection of the goods he wants to transport, asks Liezel, his trusted gun moll, to persuade Guiller to allow him one profitable shipment in exchange for big money. Liezel only succeeds in convincing Boboy, who then two-times the operation, leading Ledesma to order his men to hunt down and kill the two men’s families. They succeed in abducting Guiller, who has no idea what Boboy has done, maul him severely, and leave him for dead.
The commercial dominance of action films in Philippine cinema became the reason for the negligent treatment that Philippine cultural experts accorded it; only one other genre, the hard-core sex film, managed to surpass it during the period of transition from dictatorship to elite democracy—and not surprisingly, samples of the latter suffered even more abusive treatment, with the Philippine cardinal dictating censorship policy and censors chiefs gloating over their decision to burn celluloid strips, if not entire films, that they judged to be offensive. A more insidious form of maltreatment lay in the gatekeepers of cultural prestige, who focused selective attention on action entries when these could be read as criticizing the social policies of the martial-law government, but trained their recognition efforts on poverty-themed art films once liberal democracy had replaced the Marcos Sr. authoritarian era. As a typical illustration of separate trends tending to reinforce one another, two pulp-derived titles featuring heroes who lose their sense of sight came out in the same year: Ikasa Mo … Ipuputok Ko from komiks material, and Francis Posadas’s Kasalanan ang Buhayin Ka (It’s a Sin to Let You Live) from a regional radio serial, both now in degraded condition. IMIK is closer to a standard action-film presentation, in that it features law-enforcement lead characters who find themselves up against lawless social superiors. The komiks source enables it to explore areas and situations precluded in the previous teamup of the director and actor, Joe Pring: Homicide, Manila Police (1989), because of the latter’s biographical boundaries. The secondary importance given women characters is curbed toward the end, when the hero’s blindness necessitates his wife and mistress to team up and help in targeting his enemies. Even more markedly, IMIK makes use of high-caliber performers regardless of which side of the law they happen to play. Augusto Salvador’s extensive background as film editor helps explain the clarity and precision of his always-essential takes, with the occasionally literally explosive violence marking the film as the type our best genre specialists could execute while enabling the dramatic issues to build up in corresponding fashion, both coming to a head in a manner that commemorates technical expertise alongside histrionic skills.
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Masahol Pa sa Hayop
English Translation: Worse than an Animal
Additional Language: Ilocano
Year of Release: 1993
Director: Augusto Salvador
Screenwriter: Humilde “Meek” Roxas
Producer: Four N Films
Cast: Phillip Salvador, Jun Aristorenas, Efren Reyes Jr., Jessica Rodriguez, Atoy Co, Willie Revillame, Jessie Delgado, Philip Gamboa, Dencio Padilla, Conrad Poe, Ruel Vernal, King Gutierrez, Agot Isidro, Bob Soler, Benedict Aquino, Terence Baylon, Noel Nuqui, Bernard Fabiosa, Mike Magat, Johnny Vicar, Ernie Forte, Ernie Zarate, Turko Cervantes, Lito Castillo, Polly Cadsawan, Vic Belaro, Allan Garcia, Leon Cuevo, Robert Perez, Roger Moring, Eddie Mañalac, Jerome Advincula, Teddy Magera, Allan Reyes, Leo Adalem, Nanding Fernandez, Bebeng Amora, Nestor Balla, Lee Andres, Gamaliel Viray, Tony Tacorda, Tony Angeles, Edmund Cupcupin, Sabrina M., Jimmy Santos, Augusto Victa
After neutralizing a rogue rebel group motivated by profit and spite, Capt. Tomas Padilla is ordered by Brig. Gen. Montalban to save a provincial governor from men who allegedly took him hostage. As it turns out, Montalban was out to avenge the death of his son, who was illegally transporting contraband and defied the governor’s order to give up. Since Montalban marked Padilla and his team as expendable, they fight back and take refuge in an Aeta community, whom they free from marauding soldiers. Padilla realizes that Montalban gained an advantage by abducting his wife and son, and asks assistance from the tribespeople who’d promised to help him.
Masahol Pa sa Hayop is a peculiar creature, although its lineage can be tracked to the trend in local action films that heroicized military personnel after the successful participation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the antidictatorship uprising of February 1986. Unlike the initial batch, however, MPH does not rely on the narrative of a well-known official; nor does it partake of the self-conscious seriousness of these presentations. Those with time to spare might be able to find previous collaborations between the similarly surnamed (though apparently unrelated) director and actor—a dozen titles, though nearly thrice that if we include Augusto Salvador’s credits as film editor. MPH is preceded by a few attempts that toy with a liberal slant, with an outright left-sympathetic treatment in Lucio Margallo (1992), the pair’s previous collaboration. The current work positions itself relatively safely within a critique of abusive higher-ups and makes adequate use of a device once better deployed in a Lito Lapid film, Celso Ad. Castillo’s now-lost Pedro Tunasan (1983), where the hero finds refuge as well as assistance from the same indigenous group. The conventional though still-laudable anticorruption line is enhanced (or compromised, depending on one’s preference) by the stunts and fireworks enabled by a moderately budgeted outing, although those who might want to take a harsher view will be able to temper their response by considering how MPH ties in with a trend in global cinema, of similarly highly commercial outings that exemplify a measure of social consciousness or even sometimes outright socialist ideologizing. Several action figures, starting with Jun Aristorenas, are fortunate to have some of their best performances on record here; but the jewel in the movie’s crown is the figure of Phillip Salvador, thriving in genre projects after the death of his mentor Lino Brocka, gifting late celluloid-era pictures with the most highly skilled action-star performances on our side of the planet. He may have aged less gracefully than he should have, but with so few blessings in the mode of practice that he opted for, we can still marvel at how far he was able to take the brand of responsible film imaging that he became known for.
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