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Kahit Butas ng Karayom … Papasukin Ko
English Translation: I Will Go Through Even the Eye of the Needle
Year of Release: 1995
Directors: Fernando Poe Jr. & Willy Milan [as Ronwaldo Reyes & Wilfredo “Willy” Milan]
Screenwriters: Eddie Romero & Manny Palo
Producer: Libran Films
Cast: Fernando Poe Jr., Bing Loyzaga, Subas Herrero, Paquito Diaz, Roy Alvarez, Lito Legaspi, Bing Davao, Caridad Sanchez, Roberto Garcia, Luis Gonzales, Sunshine Dizon, Mona Margarita, Jimmy Garcia, Rex Lapid, Ernie David, Tony Bernal, Danny Riel, Bobby Benitez, Rolly Lapid, Nonoy de Guzman, Jonathan Gabriel, Bert Garon, Bong Varona, Jess Vargas
Taking his young daughter to school, Sgt. Daniel Torres nearly hits the car of a spoiled rich kid, who complains to his father about the incident. The father wants to have Sgt. Torres killed as punishment, but his superior, a colonel awaiting promotion to general, arranges to have him and his family assigned to the conflict in Mindanao instead. Along the way, Sgt. Torres stops extortionists from victimizing a Muslim, Halim. Upon arrival, he finds that the men assigned to him behave abusively, so he whips them into shape by a combination of brawn and proper behavior. Rina, his daughter’s new teacher, takes an interest in him, but he also has to contend with a corrupt mayor and hypocritical officials, a disgruntled Muslim populace (led, as it turns out, by Halim), and rapacious business interests from faraway Manila.
With Fernando Poe Jr. gone, it will take another star of equivalent stature and influence before a more definitive commercial film on the Mindanao conflict can be accomplished. Nevertheless with Kahit Butas ng Karayom … Papasukin Ko, we can still count our blessings. The Willy Milan co-directing credit might make us brace for another relentless onslaught of machismo, compounded by issues of war and religious difference, but FPJ’s growing acknowledgment of feminine values enables him to set apart a hero who actually has moments of masculine tenderness, particularly in his fondness for his unruly, zany, yet suicidally plucky dirty-dozen squad. With Eddie Romero in their final collab, he finally had the epic scope of Romero’s hidebound Aguila (1980) and the careful focus on character of Ang Padrino (The Godfather, 1984, which he directed), with much less of Romero’s usual humanistic fence-sitting, possibly owing to the credit shared with Manny Palo. From hereon we also witness an elderly action star actually behaving his age, allowing his young daughter to outdo him in the manospheric enterprise of auto repair, and giving up when overpowered in a brawl so he can later resort to the same dirty trick his opponent utilized. But where he commits himself to the oppressed is where the unexpected takes place: the heartfelt and frankly romantic pledge in the film title is uttered by his army-commander character Daniel Torres not to any family or professional associate but to a Muslim rebel leader, upon confirming that the latter is fighting for his people’s rights against the encroachment of folks primarily represented by the likes of Sgt. Torres himself. The ultimately frustrating aspect of KBKPK is that satisfactory endings, even open-ended ones, can only occur in pop culture; but stars worth their salt can lead the way and leave it up to the rest of us to follow.
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