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Nilalang
English Title: Entity
Alternate Title: Geisha of Death
Additional Language: Japanese
Year of Release: 2015
Director: Pedring Lopez
Screenwriters: Pedring Lopez & Dennis Empalmado
(From a story by Pedring Lopez)
Producers: Welovepost, Parallax Studios, Haunted Tower Pictures
Cast: Cesar Montano, Maria Ozawa, Meg Imperial, Cholo Barretto, Kiko Matos, Dido de la Paz, Ruby Ruiz, Richard Manabat, Yam Concepcion, Arthur Acuña, Bing Villegas, Aubrey Miles, Lui Manansala, Alchris Galura, Benson Dalina, Tony Belmonte, Sacho Yoshi, Noel Blanco, Yoshitomo Inoue, Ranny Comia, Alexandre Charlet, Anna Deorca, Raymond Talavera, Will Devaughn, Christine Te Nano, Jack Lee Ochoa, Jerome Calica, Richard Carvajal, Jaime del Rosario, Stanley Carvajal, Jenny Tee, Aya, Iron Maven, Jooley Shen, Junchun Macaraeg, Nico Paulo Muñoz, Jastine Wesley Buan, Rommel Allen Marasigan, Lito Angelo Reyes Bagtas, Brynne James Menguito, Jaspher Casin, Macki Pineda, Reiniesse Ellen Navarro, Edeline Andres, Salvie Cabalquinto, Mayumi Shimada, Elysha Juarez
During the seventeenth century, in the Tokugawa Shogunate of Aki, members of a samurai clan slay a demon named Zahagur, in order to protect a volume of Ishi written in the blood of ronin. Zahagur is able to escape, however, and commits atrocities through the ages, until in 2013, National Bureau of Investigation agents led by Tony corner Nakazumi, a criminal possessed by Zahagur, who had committed the worst case of serial killing in Japan and was in the process of disfiguring his latest victim in Manila. The agents succeed in killing Nakazumi, but in the present time (2015), some killings reminiscent of Nakazumi’s crimes are reported. With his partner Jane, Tony uses his ability to speak Japanese to investigate. Mr. Kazudo warns them that Zahagur has the ability to move from one possessed body to another, and that he has targeted the descendants of the samurai clain who defeated him. He informs Tony that his own daughters are endangered and that the older one, Miyuki, who runs a nightclub, has to retrieve the incomplete volume of Ishi so that it could be completed by the pages in his hands and be used to overpower Zahagur for good.
Nilalang is a sample of the past reclaiming the present: it’s an “independent” feature the way it used to be understood in the 1960s, when star-owned outfits led the charge in dismantling the ramparts of the once-impregnable studio system. Critic-historians, even left-identified ones, contrasted the indies’ products unfavorably vis-à-vis the supposedly more rational Fordist arrangement, resulting in the propagation of, among things, an entrenched conservative outlook regarding available early cinema. The more practical consequence was the negligence with which indie entries of the period were handled, so the best we can do is rely on the remonstrances expressed by observers—to the effect that, with few exceptions, the 1960s films were rampaging profit-oriented affairs, more concerned with pandering to the audience’s baser instincts and stopping at nothing, including pornography, to realize these goals. The few then-contemporary releases I remember watching, left pleasurable memories in their wake, although I was still far from being able to evaluate narrative material with any confidence. Nilalang succeeds in hybridizing sources drawn primarily from Japanese pulp culture, inclusive of historical institutions such as ancient shogunates (rendered as anime) and the yakuza syndicate, and features a performer who first made an impact in adult videos. Director Pedring Lopez demonstrates a connoisseurship of multiple influences, and remains unapologetic about commingling them in order to attain unpredictable viscerality. Along the way, one can devise a metatextual reading of patriarchal abjection if one is inclined in that direction, although the influx of references would more likely result in stimulatory overload and necessitate some rest and reflection.
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