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Crying Ladies

Year of Release: 2003
Director & Screenwriter: Mark Meily
Producer: Unitel Pictures

Cast: Sharon Cuneta, Hilda Koronel, Angel Aquino, Eric Quizon, Ricky Davao, Julio Pacheco, Shamaine Buencamino, Sherry Lara, Gilleth Sandico, Joan Bitagcol, Johnny Delgado, Edgar Mortiz, Raymond Bagatsing, Bella Flores, Lou Veloso, Jemalene Estrada, Randolf Stamatelaky, Winnie Cordero, Bearwin Meily, Ronaldo Bertubin, Andoy Ranay, Ermie Concepcion, Ruby Ruiz, Melvin Lee, Jojit Lorenzo, Jorg Schifferer, Ike Veneracion, Dante Nora, Mae Paner, Mark Meily

Fresh out of the women’s correctional where she was imprisoned for financial fraud, Stella Mate [ma-teh] attempts to find a stable source of income, but only foreign-recruitment agencies offer anything sufficiently feasible for her. Her separated husband informs her that he and his new wife plan to move to Mindanao and bring her child with them, since her jail record makes her an unfit parent. Through the small Chinatown workshop where she works part-time, she’s able to wangle a short-term designation as a funeral mourner for a traditional Chinese family, who believe that the presence of weeping guests will facilitate the journey to heaven of the dead person’s soul. Since she has to be part of a trio, Stella recruits two of her friends: Rhoda, a former movie extra insisting on being recognized for the bit roles she played when she was younger; and Choleng, a charity worker torn with guilt for conducting an affair with a married man. When they arrive at the funeral parlor, Stella realizes that the man in the coffin was the same person she had swindled and whose police complaint led to her stint in prison.

One of the crucial departures between Sharon Cuneta’s observance of the trajectory of Philippine superstar Nora Aunor was in her late turn to independent projects—but at nearly the point when she semi-retired from showbiz work. Crying Ladies, in fact, still bears some resemblance to the mainstream projects that Aunor would have worked on during her Second Golden Age heyday. Its primary point of departure is in its endeavor to accommodate racialized Asian Others in Philippine society, with an attempt to equalize relations by making the Chinese and Indian characters entrepreneurial entities who exercise benign influence over the lead character. The Chinese side gets a better airing because the family involved has a more intensive interaction with the title-character team, although the patriarch has died by the time the plot begins. The entire presentation does not really advance beyond depicting the pathos of the working-class woman who finds it near-impossible to rise above her station—one of the tiresome legacies of social realism compounded by the ideological impositions of Western standards of acceptability for films originating in postcolonial sources. It would be possible to argue that Cuneta had already done characters like Stella in the rags-to-riches projects that ushered the second (Noranian) phase of her career … but Crying Ladies reveals an authority and authenticity missing from those works, and announces still another phase, more fully Noranian this time, that she was ill-advised to abandon.

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Totoy Guwapo: Alyas Kanto Boy

English Translation: Totoy Handsome: Alias Crossroad Kid
Year of Release: 1992
Director: Toto Natividad
Screenwriters: Humilde “Meek” Roxas & Jhun Tolentino
(From a story by Carmelita del Mundo)
Producer: Moviestars Production

Cast: Ace Vergel, Bembol Roco, Efren Reyes Jr., Johnny Delgado, Aurora Sevilla, Sheila Ysrael, Willie Revillame, Rez Cortez, Max Alvarado, Roldan Aquino, Ruel Vernal, Renato del Prado, Zandro Zamora, Daria Ramirez, Tom Olivar, Atong Redillas, Sunshine Dizon, Gladys Reyes, Jimmy Reyes, Ernie David, Rene Hawkins, Nonoy de Guzman, Turko Cervantes, Bebeng Amora, Telly Babasa, Freddie Ondra, Gody Pacrem, Rey Flores, Harris Mantezo, Mike Vergel Jerome Advincula, August Pascual, Ben Dugan, Tom Alvarez, Dardo de Oro, Art Veloso, Arman Escartin, Thunder Stuntmen, Super Allasan Stuntmen, Ben Dugan Stuntmen

Because his mother resents having to raise him and opted to move away with her lover instead, Totoy winds up a street urchin working as a beggar, along with other kids, for Dolpo. When the latter beats up one kid who kept part of her earnings to buy a doll, Totoy stabs Dolpo and flees with his friends. They grow up as street criminals engaged in protection racketeering. More powerful rivals target Totoy’s interests and he lands in jail when his most trusted lieutenant, Morris, sells him out to Roldan’s gang. He manages to escape but Roldan’s men, along with Morris, know that Totoy’s vulnerability lies in the woman he loves and wishes to protect.

The son of First Golden Age action stars, Ace Vergel started as a child actor and reemerged as mature performer with skills and charisma intact. He managed to grace a few prestige projects—including Lamberto V. Avellana’s last film Waywaya (1982), an adaptation of a story by F. Sionil Jose, and Mel Chionglo’s Bomba Arienda (1985), a biography of the fiery pre-martial law radio commentator—but his legacy remained in the action genre. What distinguishes his so-called “bad boy” persona in acclaimed works like Carlo J. Caparas’s Pieta (1983) and Willy Milan’s Anak ng Cabron (Son of a Scoundrel, 1988) is how he brings overwhelming grief to his mother and, by extension, his wife. Totoy Guwapo proceeds from an awareness of the inevitability of his Oedipal predicament, but reverses the situation in order to observe a more realistic process, where the parent passes on her dysfunction to her child. This enables the text to minimize recriminatory exchanges between the main character and his family, but Totoy Guwapo benefits from more than just narrative amelioration. From his very first project, Durugin ng Bala si Peter Torres (Rain Bullets on Peter Torres, 1990), director Toto Natividad exhibited a willingness to attempt what other local action directors were too reluctant or self-repressed to portray. His daredevilry, coupled with a prolific streak, served to temper Vergel’s flair for rage and intensity by focusing on physical exploits rather than verbal outpouring, although director and star unfortunately burned bright too quickly and left too soon. Totoy Guwapo happens to be in apparently worse condition than most of Natividad’s video transfers, so the challenge to uncover a serviceable copy also abides.

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Amang Capulong: Anak ng Tondo, Part II

English Translation of Subordinate Title: Son of Tondo
Year of Release: 1992
Director: Toto Natividad
Screenwriter: Jun Lawas
Producer: Four-N Films

Cast: Monsour del Rosario, Rina Reyes, Tirso Cruz III, Johnny Delgado, Perla Bautista, Ruel Vernal, Tobby Alejar, Kevin Delgado, Lucita Soriano, Jose Romulo, Rez Cortez, Roldan Aquino, Renato del Prado, Edwin Reyes, Nilo Nuqui, Sharmaine Arnaiz, Jimmy Reyes, Dannie Riel, Ernie David, Ushman Hassim, Jess Santos, Joe Lapid, Delfin Dante, Al Mangga, Al Cunanan, Cristian Banzil, Ace Baylon, Ben Dugan, Chique Sibal, Rudy Castillo, James Gaters, Lito Mina, Bebot Davao, Ding Alvaro, Ed Madriaga, Thunder Stuntmen, Brother Stuntmen, Shadow Stuntmen, Commando Stuntmen, DM Boys Stuntmen

Amang Capulong and Gorio tease their friend Tony, who’s about to complete his police training and might henceforth find himself on the other side of his chums’ crime-adjacent lifestyles. Amang’s mother, who’s constantly berated by the village drunk Gabriela for eloping with the man she was about to marry, argues that they should tough it out as born-and-bred Tondo natives. When Tirona, a commercial developer, eyes the Sunog Apog district that he bought from the government and warns the slum residents that they should move out, they organize an initially successful legal resistance. Tirona, however, mobilizes criminal elements to stigmatize the residents. Amang’s father, who sees an opportunity to cut into their earnings, is consequently gunned down by the police, while Amang’s attempt to extract revenge lands him in jail.

Inflict as many markers of quickiness as you can on a contemporary posting of a premillennial release—open-access, apparent sequel of an ignored original, even more insistently ignored money-making genre by an extremely prolific no-name filmmaker, minimally competent lead performers, inexcusably negligent AI remastering: not only does Amang Capulong surpass all of these in announcing the arrival of the country’s final celluloid master, it also bids to stand alone as first in a string of Toto Natividad tours de force and begs favorable comparison with the final output of Fernando Poe Jr. The expected violence-inflected opener, for instance, takes place in an open-air social-dance occasion that rural and working-class urban youths consider one of the highlights of their prework existence. Near the close of FPJ’s Eseng ng Tondo (Eseng of Tondo, codir. Augusto Salvador, 1997), his character casually mingles with the trans women who organize and dominate the Tondo events, but in Natividad’s staging, the male leads boogie down with their t-girl partners, with everyone flashing broad smiles. Such a queer turn at the narrative’s kickoff (recognizable to any Tondo habitué) betokens the unpredictability that would attend the plot twists, coupled with the film’s radical critique beyond malevolent capitalist expansion. When the standard argument against relocation is voiced by the slatternly alcoholic lady whom even the community keeps distance from, then we’re assured that the artists in charge will keep everyone’s best interests in mind, regardless of social standing. The film acknowledges its own place in Philippine genre traditions by sneaking in a cameo by the star of the original Anak ng Tondo (dir. Tito Sanchez, 1985), but also thereby relieves its appreciators of having to sit through a less-than-striking entry for completism’s sake. It also maintains Natividad’s auteurist concern for improvised technologies of violence, not just in prison settings but also in arson attacks. The least that Amang Capulong can hope for is decent remastering, so a campaign of guilting out its distributor ought to be launched soonest.

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Ka Hector

English Translation: Comrade Hector
Alternate Title: Leopoldo Mabilangan
Additional Language: English
Year of Release: 1994
Director: Toto Natividad
Screenwriter: Humilde “Meek” Roxas
(From a story by Teresa Mabilangan & Humilde “Meek” Roxas)
Producers: Seiko Films & RS Productions

Cast: Phillip Salvador, Dina Bonnevie, Gardo Versoza, Ricky Davao, Willie Revillame, Efren Reyes Jr., Edwin Reyes, Renato del Prado, Glenda Garcia, Perla Bautista, Pocholo Montes, Roldan Aquino, Rene Hawkins, Jobelle Salvador, Jose de Venecia, Marcial Punzalan Jr., Atong Redillas, Jessie Delgado, Ray Ventura, Romnick Sarmenta, Don Umali, Eric Franciso, Archi Adamos, Rusty Santos, Bernard Fabiosa, Mike Magat, Romy Asuncion, Joey Padilla, Polly Cadsawan, Tony Tacorda, Lucy Quinto, RJ Salvador, Erickson Lorenzo, Vic Varrion, Erick Torrente, Ernie Forte, Ding Salvador, Henry Criste, Aris Cuevas, Rey Abad, Bebeng Amora, Albert Garcia, Andy Lara, Dick Rodriguez, Romy Aquino, Joonee Gamboa, Don Pepot

As a New People’s Army partisan, Leopoldo Mabilangan adopts the nom de guerre Ka Hector as a tribute to a selfless and people-oriented townmate whose acquaintance he made as a young man. He makes sure to observe the army’s rules on courtship as well as in dealing with civilians and captured enemy soldiers, and in the process he wins the heart of Teresa, a.k.a. Ka Hasmin. During an encounter, he discovers that Col. Jess Faraon was the socially responsive childhood friend he knew until they had to go their separate ways. When the NPA begins conducting interrogations and punishments to weed out government infiltrators, some of Ka Hector’s followers fall under suspicion and get killed. When the presidency of former army chief Fidel Ramos undertakes an amnesty program for antigovernment rebels, some reform-oriented government officials attempt to convince Ka Hector that their aspirations don’t have to clash and that he might be more effective running an aboveground cooperative program. Other comrades determined to stay on worry that his example might result in more NPA members leaving the armed movement.

Overlooked and underseen since its release, Ka Hector wastes no time in staking the immediately obvious claim—that among the filmic heroicizing of antigovernment rebels produced in the wake of the February 1986 people-power uprising, this leads the entire pack, worthy of comparison to the best of Celso Ad. Castillo’s inspired depictions of an earlier generation of progressive personalities. It achieves this remarkable latter-day feat by a combination of astute narratological and cinematic decisions. The recollection provided by Teresa Mabilangan, Ka Hector’s widow, avoids the excessive romanticizing of the subject’s biographical trajectory, allowing instead his perilous idealism to demonstrate how anyone who risks attempting innovations in militaristic projects rarely survives to tell the tale.[1] It draws parallels between the military’s right-wing coup attempts as well as the rebel army’s anti-infiltration campaign, thus making heartbreakingly comprehensible Ka Hector’s acceptance that he would be setting himself up to be targeted by either side of the conflict. Apparently well-aware of where the earlier rebel bios faltered, Toto Natividad took a turn avoided by the earlier films, openly treating the story of Ka Hector as the war movie that it actually should be, with the horrors of combat finally presented alongside the tragedy of losing comrades and the inadvisability of indulging the luxury of mourning. One would be invited to speculate that this was the direction Lino Brocka himself was heading into, if he had been able to survive into the future where the historical developments in Ka Hector took place. The comparison is uncannily apt, since the same lead actors of Orapronobis headline the film, with Phillip Salvador embodying proof that, except for Nora Aunor, no one else can match the training that Brocka provides, even with the mentor himself long-gone. Ultimate proof of the film’s masterly stature is in its close approximation of Conrado Baltazar’s visual expertise as well as in its incorporation of real-life news footage: the inserts serve the expected purpose of providing historical context at crucial moments in Ka Hector’s generational epic, but their deployment toward the end of the movie comes close to sealing shut the gap between fiction and fact.

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Wangbu

English Translation: Lunatic
Year of Release: 1998
Director: Toto Natividad
Screenwriters: Henry Nadong & Toto Natividad
Producers: Neo Films & Viva Films

Cast: Jay Manalo, Amanda Page, Dindi Gallardo, Julio Diaz, Joonee Gamboa, Roy Alvarez, Brando Legaspi, Kjell Villamarin, Mike Castillo, Tony Martin, Lauro Delgado Jr., Eric Jimenez, Rando Almanzor, Gerry Roman, Mar Sacdalan, Jun Arenas, Edward Belaro, Cris Maruso, Boy Acosta, Boy Roque, Alex Cunanan, Rudy Vicdel, Robert Miller, Louie Baylon, Jaime Cuales, Boy Gomez, Nosan Stuntmen

Feeling his way in an urban slum milieu, rural migrant Dodong is too hot-tempered to get along with his neighbors. When he catches his son trying out an illicitly procured stimulant, he beats up the pusher but catches the attention of Lt. Rapacio, the latter’s police protector. His father and his wife plead with him to return to their hometown but he points out that no future awaits him there. His father walks out as he gets arrested and tortured in jail while Rapacio and his minions invade his home and murder his wife and child. Crazed with rage and eventually called “wangbu” (a verlanization of buwang or lunatic), he attempts to purchase firearms from a small-time gunrunner and is sheltered by Janette, a golden-hearted nightclub worker.

Toto Natividad may have started late (in the same decade that Wangbu was made), but he had an extensive internship as editor in his action-film specialization, performing the same function in the current work. Comprising the most successful movie genre during the late 20th century, action films had the capacity of accommodating social discourse by virtue of their depiction of class conflict; they also tended to take masculinist privilege for granted, justifying the typical heroic central figure’s climactic rampage by enabling their villainous characters to abuse the hero’s loved ones, the more extreme the better for a final-act bloodbath. Wangbu abides by this requisite but provides a replacement semi-familial unit for the hero via a stouthearted sex worker and her colleagues, who connive in performing as hostages for a seriocomic escape sequence, as well as an atypical development featuring father-and-son conciliation. Natividad also reprises an improvised-weapon strategy that he first used in an Ace Vergel-starrer, and it still packs a punch (worst of all for the unfortunate victim). One of the last predigital action entries, Wangbu exemplifies Natividad’s generic expertise, melding the rewarding old-school strategy of choreographing crowd participation with the millennium-era vogue of cutting according to the rhythm of chopper-rap music. The dissipation of its original audience core need not foreclose the revival of the action genre in Pinas cinema, but the study of its past masters will be the first crucial step toward this goal.

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Notoryus

English Translation: Notorious
Year of Release: 1998
Director: Toto Natividad
Screenwriter: Willy Laconsay
Producer: Star Cinema

Cast: Victor Neri, Rachel Alejandro, John Regala, Gardo Versoza, Kier Legaspi, Brando Legaspi, Johnny Vicar, Aya Medel, Jorge Estregan, Jeffrey Tam, Boy Alano, Roldan Aquino, Cris Vertido, Susan Africa, John Erickson Policarpio, Gerald Ejercito, Tony Bagyo, Rando Almanzor, Lauro Delgado Jr.

Toryo Liwanag’s a recidivist who winds up serving his longest sentence after killing a police officer. Liway Sanchez, a psychology major, requests an interview for her thesis, but he mocks her academic interest. When he ascertains Liway’s concern for convicts like him, Tonyo hangs out with her and eventually develops a relationship with her. They take care of a street kid who ran away from home because of his violently abusive father. Unfortunately Toryo has to contend with abusive cops in his neighborhood, with whom a gangster, Brother Johnny, colludes using the guise of a preacher. Toryo’s aware of Bro. Johnny’s psychosis, wherein he’ll execute anyone who crosses him then ask forgiveness from heaven. When these forces succeed in landing Toryo in stir once more, he realizes he’ll have to live by his wits if he wants to reunite with his family of choice.

Like every other young male star of his generation, Victor Neri attempted supporting roles in action films, until he was able to hit his stride in Toto Natividad projects, before using the period of expected diminishing returns to complete his studies and essay one impressive age-appropriate role in Keith Deligero’s A Short History of a Few Bad Things (2018). One later collab with the Notoryus director-writer team, Ex-Con (2000), will satisfy those who want more of what they watched, although the expansion of coverage to include Triad activities might bring up questions of racial difference alongside the exclusion of the more typically unorganized criminal players from overseas. Notoryus itself coud have easily dispensed with an extended tranquil midsection by depicting its main character’s inner turmoil despite the domestic contentment fate finally (though temporarily) granted him. Even if it stretches your credulity to believe that a penal-hardened delinquent can believe in the benevolence of a social researcher and the suffering-sensitized dignity of a young survivor of parental abuse, Natividad plants without warning a murderous evangelist whose satirical spikiness makes it impossible to turn away, with a propensity for preaching that turns apocalyptic when Natividad rhythmically edits a gunfight to his bombastic cadences. Notoryus also demonstrates Natividad’s newfound specialty in maximizing the use of tight spaces, with prison sequences that function as indispensable set-piece lessons in framing, as well as in foregrounding the heretofore unexplored homoeroticism of hand-to-hand combat. Movie-making genre magic like we’ve never seen before in these parts, and sadly might never see again.

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1—Double Barrel (Sige! Iputok Mo.)

English Translation of Subordinate Title: Go Ahead! Fire Your Weapon.
Year of Release: 2017
Director: Toto Natividad [as Toto Natividad Jr.]
Screenwriter: Willy Laconsay
(From a story by Toto Natividad & Willy Laconsay)
Producer: Viva Films

Cast: AJ Muhlach, Phoebe Walker, Jeric Raval, Ali Khatibi, Oliver Aquino, Carlo Lazerna, Ronald Moreno, Dindo Arroyo, Mon Confiado, Richard Manabat, Leon Miguel, Joseph Ison, Giovanni Baldisseri, Jon Romano, Lubel Fernandez, Silay Tan, Vincent Rosales, Angel Ortiz, Anna Bianca Naraga, Rob Sy

Jeff tries to flee from a police roundup of suspected users in their slum building but gets cornered. Since the war on drugs by then-President Rodrigo Duterte provided financial incentives for police who kill drug suspects, his wife Martha makes the rounds of city jails to make sure he’s alive. Her brother Pancho has no idea where Jeff was brought and advises Martha to refrain from angering the cops. Inspector Bagani, partly out of pity for Martha, conscripts Jeff by asking him to identify and then kill his supplier. Jeff explains to Martha that he’s now on the “moral” side of the war, but one of his targets proves to be too well-protected to kill off. Bagani threatens to get rid of Jeff if he refuses to follow through, but Martha intervenes and offers to do the killing herself.

2—Riding in Tandem

Year of Release: 2017
Director: Toto Natividad
Screenwriter: Jerry Gracio
(From a story by Toto Natividad & Jerry Gracio)
Producer: Cinebro

Cast: Jason Abalos, Khalil Ramos, Joem Bascon, Nina Dolino, Mara Lopez, Victor Neri, Ronnie Quizon, Sue Prado, Dido de la Paz, Alvin Lorenz Anson, Kiko Matos, Althea Vega, Bani Baldisseri, Richard Manabat, Rommel Luna, Carlos Sia Jr., Vincent Bondoc, Mark Justine Aguillon, Lina Rowy, Silay Tan, Joseph Ison, Evangeline Torcino, Jojo Gallego, Gary Perez, Jaime Cuales, Evelyn Santos, Jason dela Cruz, Janna Espino, Cindy Espiritu, Eunice Feyven O. Timado, J.C. Gamba

Miguel is a former police officer who becomes a tandem-riding paid assassin after being fired from his job. One of his assignments, however, leads to a police chase where his partner gets killed and he lands in jail. Jonard meanwhile depends on the support of his devoted sister, who gets killed on the order of the official against whom she filed a harassment complaint. His attempt to avenge her lands him in the same cell where Miguel is incarcerated. Both are fortunate in having partners who remain loyal to them, but a prison guard takes an interest in Miguel’s wife. When Jonard is able to thwart an attempt on Miguel’s life by some of their cell roommates, the latter expresses his gratitude by offering Jonard some assistance if he asks for it. Jonard rejects Miguel’s offer, but he’s forced to reconsider after his wife suffers a medical emergency that requires a payment he can’t afford.

Toto Natividad’s remarkable track record extended to the point right before the war on drugs ended and the global pandemic, which did him in, began. His output was just as confrontational as a few other independently produced features and documentaries were during this period, but then all his work, like Lino Brocka’s, was primarily intended for commercial release—though unlike Brocka, he did not have the option to first screen them overseas to acquire any acclaim that could protect them from pushback. Curiously, the government of then-President Rodrigo R. Duterte appeared to take the cue from the first Ferdinand Marcos presidency and generally exempted cinema from his media crackdowns. What could have proved to be a hindrance for Natividad if he attempted to resume a postpandemic career was a deluge of negative commentary; this would have been expected from supporters of the still-popular PRRD, but the more deplorable responses came from certain indie enthusiasts (including organized critics), who were confident yet inept enough to essentialize mainstream film practice as a social evil. His last two completed film projects would be the envy of filmmakers capable of disabusing themselves of the art’s-sake nonsense then in vogue. Both Double Barrel and Riding in Tandem contain no evidence whatsoever of a filmmaker at rest or in decline—in fact they outperform most action films by younger hands, with the director’s CGI enhancements strictly serving the purposes of action-sequence storytelling. The first gets weighed down by the melodramatics of its central couple, but more than compensates with its unexpected depiction of not just a riding-in-tandem het pair, but also a true-believing police officer, even more sinister because of his uncritical sincerity, for whom the pecuniary rewards handed out by the administration can be treated as perks he could deploy for ongoing operations. Riding in Tandem has more fully developed material, although its palpable excitability accounts for a few stretches where the film threatens to overpower its well-honed narrative, and Natividad’s usual stabs at humor and visceral violence will be sorely missed by auteurist appreciators. Nevertheless the film’s culmination will reward anyone willing to endure a few bumps along the way. Like Double Barrel, it hearkens back to a decade-plus-old Natividad release, Ka Hector, in its treatment of rampant lawlessness in Duterte’s unconscionably bloody drug war. The setting itself provides an inexorable logic where working-class and criminal characters find common cause in the only option to earn a decent living made available to them by their social betters. The fraternal love-hate relationship that results in their alliance advances an insight rarely conveyed in progressive-minded texts, that proletarian resistance can only be strengthened with the support of the left’s wrongly derided lumpen element.

Note

[1] A social-network search constantly pointed me in the direction of a few acquaintances I had made. Teresa Mabilangan turns out to be related to actor-producer Krisma Maclang Fajardo, wife of director Lawrence Fajardo. Krisma’s grandfather was the familial contact who convinced his cousin, Leopoldo Mabilangan, who was head of the Banahaw [formerly Melito Glor] Command of the New People’s Army, to surface in civil society (Facebook Messenger exchange with Lawrence Fajardo, May 26, 2025). The Amnesty International annual report claimed that Mabilingan’s execution in April 1994 was attributed to “heinous crimes” (“AI Report 1995—Philippines,” RefWorld: Global Law & Policy Database, issued January 1, 1995). On the other hand, a contradictory report on the deaths of former cadres alleged that the killing of Mabilangan was meant to implement a Maoist tactic of sacrificing a lower official as a warning to a leader’s enemies; if this were true, then it meant that Mabilangan himself had not committed any serious act that would incite any grievance in the party leadership, aside from resigning from his underground commitment to take advantage of an amnesty proclamation (see “After [Romulo] Kintanar, the Killings Continue: The Post-1992 [Communist Party of the Philippines] Assassination Policy in the Philippines,” Libcom.org, March 1, 2020).

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Ang Nawawala

English Title: What Isn’t There
Year of Release: 2012
Director: Marie Jamora
Screenwriters: Marie Jamora & Ramon de Veyra
Producers: Brainchild Studios, Cinemalaya, National Commission for Culture and the Arts

Cast: Dominic Roco, Dawn Zulueta, Felix Roco, Boboy Garrovillo, Alchris Galura, Mercedes Cabral, Kelvin Yu, Jenny Zamora, Marc Abaya, Annicka Dolonius, Sabrina Man, Dayang Enriquez, Ethan Fabella, Leah Johnson, Boy Laguipo, Zarah Pagay, Sunshine Teodoro, Lianne Valentin, Joy Vargas

Traumatized when his twin brother had a fatal accident because of a dare he made, Gibson Bonifacio lapsed into silence, never speaking to anyone since then. He remained particularly wary of his mother, who openly preferred Jamie, his brother. Things remained the same even after Gibson’s sojourn in the US, although unknown to anyone, Gibson maintains imaginary conversations with Jamie, who has also grown up along with him. His relations with himself, his family, and his friends come to a head when he falls for Enid, a pop musician who encourages him but later admits that she’s on the rebound from a breakup with another musician, for whom she still has some affection.

No other contemporary indie production has proved as divisive as Ang Nawawala, owing for the most part to its Fil-Am source. The controversy raised unfair expectations regarding its merits, although these were premised on mutually indefensible ideological differences. The film was denounced on the basis of two crucial properties: its acquiescence to mainstream values, as if a work on pop music could have justified high-art stylistics without courting the danger of pretension; and its focus on a milieu that did not foreground the sociological components of poverty. Its appreciators, also symptomatic of another type of affliction in Pinas film criticism, insistently rhapsodized over what they read as its celebration of bourgeois Americanized culture. Excepting these polarities, and now with the advantage of temporal distance, Ang Nawawala may be more properly considered for its critical take on precisely the culture that both sides misperceived and quarreled over. With a modest retinue of domestic helpers, the Bonifacio family members feel entitled enough to wallow in tragic errors that they sustain for years. It is Gibson’s relatively less-privileged intimates—his socially awkward brother-in-law, his independent-minded fling, and finally his decently discreet father—who provide him with motivations to work on his dysfunctional condition as well as his mother’s. Director Marie Jamora conveys these points without spelling them out (a liability for ideologically fixated evaluators, as it turned out), as well as by drawing out fully sympathetic and lived-in performances from Dominic Roco as Gibson and Dawn Zulueta as his mother, both of whom she tasked with delineating the least reasonable characters in the film.

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Amado Pagsanjan’s Asiong Salonga

Alternate Title: Asiong Salonga
Year of Release: 1961 / B&W
Director: Pablo Santiago
Screenwriter: Tommy C. David
(From a story serialized in Bulaklak magazine by Amado Pagsanjan)
Producer: Larry Santiago Productions

Cast: Joseph Estrada, Jose Padilla Jr., Yolanda Guevarra, Guia Gomez, Boy Francisco, Paquito Diaz, Vic Diaz, Vicente Liwanag, Dely Atay-Atayan, Jane Palomar, Nello Nayo, Francisco Cruz, Dencio Padilla, Arsenio Alonzo, Cleng-Cleng Diaz, Fred Ramirez, Bert Silva, Tony Santos

Nicasio Salonga, better known by his nickname Asiong, uses a combination of charm and propensity for violence to rise in the ranks of the most notorious gangs in the crime-ridden district of Tondo. Because of his notoriety, his elder brother has to give up his job as a police official while his mother dies during one of his incarcerations. He maintains a circle of mostly loyal followers and succeeds in courting Fidela and later convinces Emilia to be his mistress. A lesser-ranking hoodlum, Totoy Golem, starts out as a rival but eventually professes to be his friend and supporter while convincing Erning, one of Asiong’s malcontented and unruly recruits, to join his side.

Political democracy never wasted a bigger Philippine talent than it did Joseph Estrada. Newcomers to his screen record might be shocked to find, in the context of his era, a risk-taking performer with solid performative instincts with a willingness to depict the dregs of society—possibly the best we ever had in the action genre. His early starring roles, with Asiong Salonga comprising his star turn, were still free of the bad-boy mannerisms and intense-aspirated delivery that had already overtaken contemporaneous stars starting with Fernando Poe Jr. (The latter of course made his mark in other compensatory auteurist terms, starting with film production.) Erap’s later self-produced films took advantage of his rising political influence by focusing on personalities associated with the pre-1968 Communist armed movement, a productive mode that he gave up in exchange for the pursuit of presidential and local-government perks. The original cut of Asiong Salonga suffered from the excessive moralizing understandably imposed by society’s moral guardians, since the real-life model physically resembled Erap too closely and burned out far too quickly. Fortunately, the shortened version posted online by Solar Entertainment makes judicious use of fadeouts and a few jump cuts in the interest of cutting short several onscreen sermons and, in one case, a song number by Erap himself. The file still nears the two-hour mark anyway, an indicator of how incident-packed Salonga’s short life was (keep alert for Tony Santos’s reflexive cameo where he in effect passes on his bad-boy aura to Estrada via Salonga). The genre-studies principle that melodrama undergirds all the other genres, with the action movie as essentially melodrama for men, starts here before it proceeds to the rest of the the local action-film samples in the forthcoming decades.

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1—Pepeng Kaliwete

English Title: Left-Handed Pepe
Year of Release: 1982
Director: Pablo Santiago
Screenwriters: Fred Navarro & Alex M. Sunga
(Based on a character created by Alex M. Sunga)
Producer: FPJ Productions

Cast: Fernando Poe Jr., Marianne de la Riva, Paquito Diaz, Rodolfo “Boy” Garcia, Anita LInda, Ruel Vernal, Victor Bravo, Vic Varrion, Nello Nayo, Robert Rivera, Amay Bisaya, Ken Metcalf, Teody Belarmino, George Gyenes, Michael Pigar, Cesar Abejuela, Amy Anzures, Tony Carreon, Ernie David, Diog de Castro, Joe Estrada, Bert Garon, Eddie Gicoso, Romy Guarin, Benny May, Rony Montero, Bob Padilla, Wilson Red, Jimmy Reyes, Eddie Samonte, Thunder Stuntmen, Eddie Tuazon, Rudy Fernandez, Don Pepot

Pepe’s father plans to leave the hacienda in Del Pilar because of the owner’s avarice and cruelty, but gets gunned down in the presence of his wife and son. The owner entrusts Pepe to the care of Davis, a benign American caretaker who teaches Pepe how to clean and shoot a .45-caliber pistol. When Merill, the abusive American who killed Pepe’s father, brings over a female tenant to ravish, Pepe uses the pistol to warn him but winds up shooting Merill dead. Pepe and his mother flee to another town, where he grows up anonymously and acquires a reputation as a defender of the oppressed. His mother understands how he hankers to help the people in Del Pilar, so she tells him to do what his heart desires. Despite the scion of the hacienda owner still being as abusive as his father before him, the town mayor is genuinely people-oriented. Although presenting as a migrant worker, Pepe helps him get rid of corrupt police elements and expresses a desire to join the police force. The mayor instead appoints him chief, and he successfully woos Salud, the mayor’s niece; but when the landowner tries to win him over, Pepe declares himself on the side of the workers, earning the enmity of the haciendero.

2—Annie Sabungera

English Title: Annie the Cockfighter
Year of Release: 1982
Director: Pablo Santiago
Screenwriter: Tommy C. David
Producer: GPS Film Productions

Cast: Nora Aunor, Ace Vergel, Rey Valera, Marilou Bendigo, Nova Villa, Dencio Padilla, Chito Arceo, Amay Bisaya, Hero Bautista, Ramon D’Salva, Tony Santos, German Moreno, Tintoy, Dodong Gonzales, Protacio Dee, Angie Salinas, Richard King, Samson

Mang Intong has turned to gambling as a way of forgetting the sudden death of his wife. When he gets drunk, he loses his temper and beats up his daughter Annie, but expresses regret afterward. He teaches Annie the best way to raise gamecocks and she proves to be an adept trainee when she takes her father’s best rooster and wins a difficult round. Mang Intong’s excitement causes him to suffer a fatal heart attack in the cockpit. Like he did for his late wife, Annie devotes her life to cockfighting. Her father appears one night and tells her that he arranged to provide for her a sure winner. Following his instructions, she finds a new gamecock that speaks only to her, names him Samson, and sets out for Manila to try her luck. Her childhood friend, Domeng, carries a torch for her but has to stay behind to work. Annie’s triumph with Samson piques the interest of Randy, an apparently well-bred gentleman who’s really a henchman for a gambling lord. Randy’s boss takes an interest in Samson but Annie refuses to give up her father’s gift, so the boss asks Randy to help him trick Annie.

Although the nephew of one of the founders of Premiere Productions, Pablo Santiago succeeded in independent productions for his own outfit as well as for those of his cousins Cirio (famed for foreign coproductions) and Larry. More significantly, he specialized in projects that featured the biggest stars of their time—Fernando Poe Jr. and Joseph Estrada during the First Golden Age, and Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos during the Second. He might have been remembered for “developmentalist” projects such as Batingaw (Church Bell, 1974) or Kasal-Kasalan, Bahay-Bahayan (Playing Married, Playing House, 1979), or his later crossover assists between romantic-comedy and action performers; but in one propitious year he accepted assignments for Poe and Aunor that allowed him to foreground the skills and ease he accumulated in over a quarter-century of commercial practice. Pepeng Kaliwete had FPJ embarking on his usual role as champion of the oppressed, treading the same ground as the raved-over Sakada (Sugar-Plantation Migrant Workers, dir. Behn Cervantes, 1976). Its observations of backbreaking labor and dehumanizing treatment are on the mark, although certain concessions to the power structure, notably in depicting a sympathetic local-government official and a persecuted American, threaten to upend its leftist leanings. Fortunately, FPJ himself knew when he had to minimize his crowd-pleasing antics in order to allow the interests of the populace to be filtered through his persona, and comes close to violating the taboo against allowing his character to die, although only in a symbolic sense. Annie Sabungera is an even further throwback, to an era when fantastic developments were allowed to intervene in a lead character’s material predicaments. The real miracle lay in Aunor’s resolve to play the proceedings straight, layering her performance with the same set of superior performative skills that she brought to her prestige projects;[1] this had always been her approach throughout her career, but one only has to inspect any other local actor of equal or lesser status to find how exceptional her achievement was. The buildup to an unexpectedly devastating resolution, where social corruption prevails over supernatural powers, requires a complex of conflicting responses that would have defeated most capable actors. Aunor’s description of her fallow moments as a consequence of downgrading by film critics who should have known better, only revealed how impossible it was for them to fulfill their worst expectations of her. [Tech note: existing video transfers of Annie Sabungera suffer from an unacceptable cropping of the right portion of the screen, in addition to the usual degraded surface.]

Note

[1] Appropriately enough, the first time cockfighting was documented by a Westerner was when Antonio Pigafetta observed the sport upon arriving in what is now the Philippines, in Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (An Account of the First Voyage Around the World), his 1525 chronicle of Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage. A contemporary cockfight specialist who recollected the films he had seen, took exception with Annie Sabungera’s fantasy elements, but nevertheless observed how the film had “a considerable amount of sabong vocabulary employed as well as some handling and conditioning techniques”—see Rolando S. Luzong, “Finally, a New Sabong Movie in the Making,” Animal Scene Magazine (supplement of Manila Bulletin), March 2009 issue. The film referenced in the article title was Rozie Delgado & Miguel Kaimo’s Sabungero (The Cockfighter, 2009), although a more recent release, Bryan Kristoffer Brazil’s Lost Sabungeros (2024), has become an unusual cause célèbre because of its civic significance: produced by GMA Public Affairs, the documentary raised questions about the abduction and disappearance of thirty cockfighters whose interests conflicted with those of politically connected gambling lords. One final observation about the Pablo Santiago film, never made anywhere, might be historical in nature, inasmuch as the backstory of Annie’s father resembles the real-life narrative of Gregorio Fernandez, a major First Golden Age director-actor (also represented in Canon Decampment): the death of his wife apparently led to his eventual abandonment of career and family, fostering a new vocation as champion cockfighter in his hometown of Lubao, Pampanga; see Joel David, “A Missing Installation in the Philippine Pantheon: Gregorio ‘Yoyong’ Fernandez (1904–1973),” Pelikula: A Journal of Philippine Cinema and Moving Image, vol. 9 (2024), pp. 24–35.

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Click here to return to the book’s landing page. To read the links below in desktop mode (recommended), click here. Titles (309 so far, from 130 directorial entries), if numbered and linked by ampersands (“&”), are sufficiently related and will thereby share the same singular review in their respective descriptions and synopses.

Click on the following to navigate more quickly through the list: B; C; D; E; F; G; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; V; Z.

Abaya, Matthew: Vampariah, 2016.

Abe Yutaka – see de Leon, Gerardo, & Abe Yutaka.

Abrahan, Giancarlo: Dagitab, 2014; Sila-Sila, 2019.

Acedillo, Vic Jr.: Ang Nerseri, 2009.

Aguiluz, Tikoy: Boatman, 1985; Segurista, 1995; Biyaheng Langit, 2000.

Alix, Adolfo Jr.: Tambolista [as Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.], 2007; Imoral [as Adolfo B. Alix Jr.], 2008; Isda, 2011; Porno [as Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.], 2013; Madilim ang Gabi [as Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.], 2017.

Altarejos, Joselito: Ang Lihim ni Antonio, 2008; Unfriend [as J Altarejos], 2014; Jino to Mari, 2019.

Aunor, Nora: Greatest Performance [as Guy; unfinished], 1989.

Avellana, Lamberto V.: Anak Dalita, 1956; Sarjan Hassan, 1958; Nick Joaquin’s A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, 1965; The Evil Within, 1970.

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Barbarona, Arnel: Tu Pug Imatuy, 2017.

Bayani, Ruel S.: No Other Woman [as Ruel Santos Bayani], 2011.

Bernal, Ishmael: Pagdating sa Dulo, 1971; Lumapit … Lumayo ang Umaga, 1975; Ligaw na Bulaklak, 1976; Nunal sa Tubig, 1976; Nonoy Marcelo’s Tisoy!, 1977; Ikaw Ay Akin, 1978; Salawahan, 1979; Aliw, 1979; Manila by Night, 1980; Pabling, 1981; 1) Relasyon, 1982 & 2) Broken Marriage, 1983; Himala, 1982; Working Girls, 1984; Hinugot sa Langit, 1985.

Bernal, Joyce: 1) Booba [as Binibining Joyce Bernal], 2001 & 2) Masikip sa Dibdib: The Boobita Rose Story [as Binibining Joyce Bernal], 2004; Kimmy Dora: Kambal sa Kiyeme [as Binibining Joyce Bernal], 2009.

Bernardo, Sigrid Andrea: Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita (Anita’s Last Cha-Cha) [as Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo], 2013; Lorna [as Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo], 2014; UnTrue [as Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo], 2019.

Borlaza, Emmanuel H.: 1) Bukas Luluhod ang mga Tala, 1984; 2) Bituing Walang Ningning, 1985; Stolen Moments, 1987.

Brocka, Lino: Tubog sa Ginto, 1970; Stardoom, 1971; Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, 1974; Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag, 1975; Insiang, 1976; Jaguar, 1979; Bona, 1980; Cain at Abel, 1982; 1) Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim, 1984 & 2) Orapronobis, 1989; Miguelito: Batang Rebelde, 1985; Babangon Ako’t Dudurugin Kita, 1989; Hahamakin Lahat, 1990; Gumapang Ka sa Lusak, 1990.

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Cabreira, Junn P.: Beloy Montemayor Jr.: Tirador ng Cebu, 1993.

Castillo, Celso Ad.: Asedillo, 1971; Daluyong at Habagat, 1976; Burlesk Queen, 1977; Celso Ad. Castillo’s Totoy Boogie, 1980; Uhaw na Dagat, 1981; Paradise Inn, 1985.

Castro, Jade: Zombadings 1: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington, 2011; LSS, 2019.

Cayado, Tony: Mga Ligaw na Bulaklak, 1957.

Chionglo, Mel: Playgirl, 1981; Sinner or Saint, 1984; 1) Nasaan Ka Nang Kailangan Kita, 1986 & 2) Paano Kung Wala Ka Na, 1987; Babaing Hampaslupa, 1988; Developing Stories: Lucia, 1992; 1) Sibak: Midnight Dancers, 1994 & 2) Burlesk King, 1999 & 3) Twilight Dancers, 2006; Iadya Mo Kami, 2016.

Chui Chung-San, Alan, & Yuen Bun: Mabangis na Lungsod, 1995.

Conde, Conrado: Talipandas, 1958.

Conde, Manuel: Genghis Khan [credited to Lou Salvador], 1950.

Cruz-Alviar, Mae: Bride for Rent [as Mae Czarina Cruz], 2014.

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Dayao, Dodo: Midnight in a Perfect World, 2020.

Dayoc, Sheron R.: Halaw, 2010.

de Castro, Eduardo: Zamboanga: A Fanciful Tale of Moro Sea Gypsies, 1937.

de Guia, Eric – see Tahimik, Kidlat.

de Guzman, Susana C.: Lupang Pangako [incomplete], 1949.

dela Cruz, Abbo Q.: Hubad na Pangarap, 1987.

Dela Cruz, Emmanuel: Sarong Banggi, 2005.

de Leon, Gerardo: Sisa, 1951; Dyesebel, 1953; Pedro Penduko, 1954; Sanda Wong, 1955; Terror Is a Man [as Gerry de Leon], 1959; The Moises Padilla Story, 1961; El Filibusterismo, 1962; Women in Cages [as Gerry de Leon], 1971.

de Leon, Gerardo, & Abe Yutaka: Dawn of Freedom, 1944.

De Leon, Mike: Itim, 1976; Kakabakaba Ka Ba?, 1980; 1) Kisapmata, 1981 & 2) Batch ’81, 1982; Sister Stella L., 1984; Bilanggo sa Dilim, 1986; Bayaning 3rd World, 1999.

Deligero, Keith: Iskalawags, 2013; Lily, 2016; A Short History of a Few Bad Things, 2018.

de los Reyes, Maryo J.: Schoolgirls, 1982; Diosa, 1982; Bagets, 1984; Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit, 1984; Anak ni Waray vs. Anak ni Biday, 1984; Dinampot Ka Lang sa Putik, 1988; Magnifico, 2003.

del Rosario, Joey: Kahit Pader Gigibain Ko, 1998.

Deramas, Wenn V.: Ang Tanging Ina, 2003.

Diaz, Lav: Hesus, Rebolusyunaryo, 2002; Florentina Hubaldo, CTE, 2012; Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan, 2013.

Diaz-Abaya, Marilou: 1) Brutal, 1980 & 2) Moral, 1982; Karnal, 1983; Sensual, 1986; May Nagmamahal sa Iyo, 1996; Milagros, 1997.

Dulay, Zig Madamba: Bambanti, 2015.

Dulu, Dolly: The Boy Foretold by the Stars, 2020.

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Espia, Hannah: Transit, 2013.

Esteban, Tata: Alapaap, 1984.

Estella, Ramon A.: Kembali Saorang, 1957; Samseng, 1959; Saudagar Minyak Urat, 1959; Pusaka Pontianak, 1965.

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Fajardo, Lawrence: Amok, 2011; Posas, 2012; The Strangers, 2012; Imbisibol, 2015.

Fernandez, Gregorio: Kontrabando, 1950; Prinsipe Teñoso, 1954; 1) Higit sa Lahat [as Dr. Gregorio Fernandez], 1955 & 2) Luksang Tagumpay [incomplete], 1956; Hukom Roldan [as Dr. Gregorio Fernandez], 1957; Malvarosa [as Dr. Gregorio Fernandez], 1958.

Fiola, Bagane: Baboy Halas: Wailings in the Forest, 2016.

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Gallaga, Peque: Oro, Plata, Mata, 1982; Virgin Forest, 1985; Scorpio Nights, 1985.

Gallaga, Peque, & Lore Reyes: 1) Tiyanak, 1988 & 2) Aswang, 1992; Sonata, 2013.

Gallardo, Cesar: Geron Busabos: Ang Batang Quiapo, 1964.

Garces, Armando: Sino ang Maysala?, 1957.

Garcia, Eddie: Saan Nagtatago ang Pag-Ibig?, 1987.

Garcia-Molina, Cathy – see Garcia-Sampana, Cathy.

Garcia-Sampana, Cathy: One More Chance [as Cathy Garcia-Molina], 2007.

Gosiengfiao, Joey: La Paloma, 1974; Underage, 1980.

Guillen, Laurice: Kasal?, 1980; Salome, 1981; Init sa Magdamag, 1983; Kung Mahawi Man ang Ulap, 1984; Sumayaw Ka Salome, 1992; Dahil Mahal Kita: The Dolzura Cortez Story, 1993.

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Ignacio, Louie: Area [as Luisito Lagdameo Ignacio], 2016.

Illenberger, Tara: Brutus, ang Paglalakbay, 2008; High Tide [as Tara Barrera Illenberger], 2017.

Intalan, Perci M.: Dementia, 2014.

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Jadaone, Antoinette: That Thing Called Tadhana, 2014.

Jamora, Marie: Ang Nawawala, 2012.

Jarlego, Ike Jr.: Tigasin, 1999.

Jeturian, Jeffrey: Pila-Balde, 1999; Tuhog, 2001; 1) Bridal Shower, 2004 & 2) Minsan Pa, 2004; Kubrador, 2006; Ekstra, 2013.

Jover, Ralston: 1) Da Dog Show [as Ralston G. Jover], 2015 & 2) Hamog [as Ralston G. Jover], 2015; Rene Villanueva’s Hiblang Abo [as Ralston G. Jover], 2016; Bomba [as Ralston Gonzales Jover], 2017; Latay (Battered Husband) [as Ralston Gonzales Jover], 2019.

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Kayko, Sixto – see Roño, Chito S.

Khavn: 1) Ang Pamilyang Kumakain ng Lupa, 2005 & 2) Ang Napakaigsing Buhay ng Alipato, 2016; Pusong Wazak: Isa Na Namang Kwento ng Pag-ibig sa Pagitan ng Kriminal at Puta, 2014; Desaparadiso: Corrido at Buhay na Pinagdaanan nang Tatlong Principeng Magcacapatid na Anac nang Haring Fernando at nang Reina Valeriana sa Cahariang Berbania, 2015; Balangiga: Howling Wilderness, 2017.

Kim Bong-han: The Golden Holiday, 2020.

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Lamangan, Joel: Hubog [as Joel C. Lamangan], 2001; Walang Kawala [as Joel C. Lamangan], 2008; Burgos, 2013.

Lamasan, Olivia M.: Minsan, Minahal Kita, 2000; Milan, 2004.

Lana, Jun Robles: Die Beautiful, 2016.

Lao, Armando: Biyaheng Lupa, 2009.

Laxamana, Jason Paul: The Day After Valentine’s, 2018.

Lerner, Irving: Cry of Battle, 1963.

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Mambo, Rico – see dela Cruz, Abbo Q.

Marcos, Pepe: Tubusin Mo ng Dugo, 1988.

Mardoquio, Arnel: Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim, 2012.

Marquez, Artemio: The Untold Story of Melanie Marquez, 1987; Sa Puso Ko Hahalik ang Mundo, 1988.

Martin, Raya: Independencia, 2009.

Martinez, Chris: Here Comes the Bride, 2010.

Matti, Erik: On the Job, 2013.

Meily, Mark: Crying Ladies, 2003.

Mendoza, Brillante: 1) Foster Child, 2007 & 2) Tirador, 2007; Serbis [as Brillante Ma. Mendoza], 2008; Lola [as Brillante Ma. Mendoza], 2009; Ma’ Rosa, 2016.

Milan, Willy, & Fernando Poe Jr. – see Poe, Fernando Jr., & Willy Milan.

Monteras, Treb II: Respeto, 2017.

Montgomery, George: Samar, 1962.

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Natividad, Toto: Totoy Guwapo: Alyas Kanto Boy, 1992; Amang Capulong: Anak ng Tondo, Part II, 1992; Ka Hector, 1994; Wangbu, 1998; Notoryus, 1998; 1) Double Barrel (Sige! Iputok Mo.), 2017 & 2) Riding in Tandem, 2017.

Navoa, J. Erastheo: Totoy Buang: Mad Killer ng Maynila, 1992.

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O’Hara, Mario: Tatlong Taóng Walang Diyos, 1976; 1) Condemned, 1984 & 2) Bulaklak sa City Jail, 1984; Bagong Hari, 1986; Pangarap ng Puso, 2000; Babae sa Breakwater, 2003.

Ongkeko-Marfil, Ellen: Boses, 2008; Indigo Child, 2016.

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Palisoc, King: Tandem, 2015.

Paolo, Steve – see Esteban, Tata.

Parungao, Monti: 1) Bayaw [as Monti Puno Parungao], 2009; 2) The Escort [as Monti Puno Parungao], 2011.

Pascual, William: Takaw Tukso, 1986.

Pasion, Francis Xavier: Jay, 2008.

Perez, Elwood: Silip, 1985; Bilangin ang Bituin sa Langit, 1989; Ang Totoong Buhay ni Pacita M., 1991; Otso, 2013.

Perez, Roman Jr.: Sol Searching, 2018.

Poe, Fernando Jr.: 1) Ang Panday [as Ronwaldo Reyes], 1980 & 2) Pagbabalik ng Panday [as Ronwaldo Reyes], 1981 & 3) Ang Panday: Ikatlong Yugto [as Ronwaldo Reyes], 1982 & 4) Ang Panday IV [as Ronwaldo Reyes], 1984; Ang Maestro [as Ronwaldo Reyes], 1981; Ang Dalubhasa [as Ronwaldo Reyes], 2000.

Poe, Fernando Jr., & Willy Milan: Kahit Butas ng Karayom … Papasukin Ko [as Ronwaldo Reyes & Wilfredo “Willy” Milan], 1995.

Poe, Fernando Jr., & Augusto Salvador: Eseng ng Tondo [as Ronwaldo Reyes], 1997.

Portes, Gil: Gabi Kung Sumikat ang Araw [as Gil M. Portes], 1983; ’Merika [as Gil M. Portes], 1984; Bukas … May Pangarap [as Gil M. Portes], 1984.

Posadas, Francis: Amanos: Patas ang Laban [as Francis “Jun” Posadas], 1997; ’Di Puwedeng Hindi Puwede! [as Francis “Jun” Posadas], 1999.

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Quintos, Rory B.: Kailangan Kita, 2002.

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Raquiza, Jun: Krimen: Kayo ang Humatol, 1974.

Red, Jon: Still Lives, 1999.

Red, Mikhail: 1) Birdshot, 2016 & 2) Neomanila, 2017.

Relucio, Brandon, & Ivan Zaldarriaga: Di Ingon ’Nato, 2011.

Reyes, Efren: Ang Daigdig Ko’y Ikaw, 1965.

Reyes, Jose Javier: Minsan May Isang Puso, 2001; Kung Ako Na Lang Sana, 2003.

Reyes, Lore – see Gallaga, Peque, & Lore Reyes.

Reyes, Ronwaldo – see Poe, Fernando Jr.

Richardson, George – see Suarez, Bobby A.

Rivera, Marlon N.: Ang Babae sa Septic Tank, 2011.

Romero, Eddie: The Passionate Strangers, 1966; Savage Sisters, 1974; Ganito Kami Noon … Paano Kayo Ngayon?, 1976; Banta ng Kahapon, 1977.

Roño, Chito S.: 1) Private Show [as Sixto Kayko], 1984 & 2) Curacha: Ang Babaeng Walang Pahinga, 1998; 1) Itanong Mo sa Buwan, 1988 & 2) La Vida Rosa, 2001; Bakit Kay Tagal ng Sandali?, 1990; Alyas Stella Magtanggol, 1992; Bata Bata Paano Ka Ginawa?, 1998; Caregiver, 2008; Signal Rock, 2018.

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Salvador, Augusto: Masahol Pa sa Hayop, 1993.

Salvador, Augusto, & Fernando Poe Jr. – see Poe, Fernando Jr., & Augusto Salvador.

Salvador, Leroy: Badlis sa Kinabuhi, 1968; Beloved, 1985.

Salvador, Lou – see Conde, Manuel.

Sanchez, Sherad Anthony: Huling Balyan ng Buhi o ang Sinalirap nga Asoy Nila, 2006; Jungle Love, 2012.

Santiago, Pablo: Amado Pagsanjan’s Asiong Salonga, 1961; 1) Pepeng Kaliwete, 1982 & 2) Annie Sabungera, 1982.

Santos, Teodorico C.: Taufan [as T.C. Santos], 1957.

Sayles, John: Amigo, 2010.

Siguion-Reyna, Carlos: 1) Hihintayin Kita sa Langit, 1991 & 2) Ikaw Pa Lang ang Minahal, 1992; Ang Lalake sa Buhay ni Selya, 1997; Tatlo … Magkasalo, 1998.

Silos, Manuel: Biyaya ng Lupa, 1959.

Solito, Auraeus: Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, 2005.

Somes, Richard V.: Yanggaw, 2008.

Suarez, Bobby A.: They Call Her … Cleopatra Wong [as George Richardson], 1978; Red Roses for a Call Girl, 1988.

Suzara, Romy V.: Pepeng Shotgun, 1981.

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Tahimik, Kidlat: Mababangong Bangungot, 1977.

Tarog, Jerrold: Heneral Luna, 2015.

Topacio, Soxy: Ded Na si Lolo [as Soxie Hernandez Topacio], 2009.

Torres, Mar S.: Jack en Jill, 1954.

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Vander Tolosa, Carlos: Giliw Ko, 1939.

Velasco, Veronica: Nuuk [as Veronica B. Velasco], 2019.

Villaluna, Paolo: Pauwi Na, 2016.

Villamor, Irene: Meet Me in St. Gallen, 2018; Ulan, 2019; On Vodka, Beers, and Regrets, 2020.

Villegas, Dan: Hintayan ng Langit, 2018.

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Zaldarriaga, Ivan – see Relucio, Brandon, & Ivan Zaldarriaga.

Zapata, Dominic: Boy Pick-Up: The Movie, 2012.

Zialcita, Danny L.: T-Bird at Ako, 1982; Palabra de Honor, 1983.

Zuasola, Remton Siega: Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria, 2010.

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Á!

Original Digital Edition (2023)
Cover design by Paolo Miguel G. Tiausas
“Bomba” © 2019 by Mina Saha
[Click on pic to enlarge]

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The textual contents on this page, although still under development, have been embargoed. Please await the forthcoming PDF file. Thank you for your interest.

National Library of the Philippines CIP Data

David, Joel.
11011Canon Decampment / Joel David. — Original Digital Edition. — Quezon City : Amauteurish Publishing, [2023], © 2023.
11011146+x pages ; 15×23 cm

11011ISBN 978-621-96191-8-9 (pdf)

110111. Motion pictures — Criticism and interpretation — Philippines. 2. Motion pictures — Philippines. 3. Film criticism. I. Title.

791.4375111111011PN1995.67.P51111110112023111111011P320230298

US Copyright Office Certificate of Registration:
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“Canon Fire!” and mini-reviews
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Contents
© 2025 by Amauteurish Publishing &
College of Social Sciences, Inha University
All Rights Reserved

Introduction

Canon Munitions: From the Beginning to 2020
Note: This list is ordered chronologically according to premiere or initial release date, each of these 130 entries followed by the inclusive years of the directors’ selected films as well as by the total number of selected titles. For an alphabetical arrangement of directors, including each entry’s film(s) and year(s) of release, click here. Not all commentaries and synopses are complete as of this time.

Eduardo de Castro (1937: 1 title)
Carlos Vander Tolosa (1939: 1 title)
Gerardo de Leon & Abe Yutaka (1944: 1 title)
Gerardo de Leon (1951-71: 8 titles)
Susana C. de Guzman (1949: 1 title)
Gregorio Fernandez (1950-58: 6 titles)
Manuel Conde (1950: 1 title)
Mar S. Torres (1954: 1 title)
Lamberto V. Avellana (1956-70: 4 titles)
Tony Cayado (1957: 1 title)

Armando Garces (1957: 1 title)
Ramon A. Estella (1957-65: 4 titles)
Teodorico C. Santos (1957: 1 title)
Conrado Conde (1958: 1 title)
Manuel Silos (1959: 1 title)
Pablo Santiago (1961-82: 3 titles)
George Montgomery (1962: 1 title)
Irving Lerner (1963: 1 title)
Cesar Gallardo (1964: 1 title)
Efren Reyes (1965: 1 title)

Eddie Romero (1966-77: 4 titles)
Leroy Salvador (1968-85: 2 titles)
Lino Brocka (1970-90: 14 titles)
Celso Ad. Castillo (1971-86: 6 titles)
Ishmael Bernal (1971-85: 15 titles)
Jun Raquiza (1974: 1 title)
Joey Gosiengfiao (1974-80: 2 titles)
Mike De Leon (1976-99: 7 titles)
Mario O’Hara (1976-2003: 6 titles)
Kidlat Tahimik (1977: 1 title)

Bobby A. Suarez (1978-88: 2 titles)
Laurice Guillen (1980-93: 6 titles)
Marilou Diaz-Abaya (1980-97: 6 titles)
Fernando Poe Jr. (1980-2000: 6 titles)
Fernando Poe Jr. & Willy Milan (1995: 1 title)
Fernando Poe Jr. & Augusto Salvador (1997: 1 title)
Mel Chionglo (1981-2016: 10 titles)
Romy V. Suzara (1981: 1 title)
Peque Gallaga (1982-85: 3 titles)
Peque Gallaga & Lore Reyes (1988-2013: 3 titles)

Maryo J. de los Reyes (1982-2003: 7 titles)
Danny L. Zialcita (1982-83: 2 titles)
Gil Portes (1983-84: 3 titles)
Emmanuel H. Borlaza (1984-87: 3 titles)
Tata Esteban (1984: 1 title)
Chito S. Roño (1984-2018: 9 titles)
Elwood Perez (1985-2013: 4 titles)
Tikoy Aguiluz (1985-2000: 3 titles)
William Pascual (1986: 1 title)
Abbo Q. dela Cruz (1987: 1 title)

Eddie Garcia (1987: 1 title)
Artemio Marquez (1987-88: 2 titles)
Pepe Marcos (1988: 1 title)
Nora Aunor (1989: 1 title)
Carlos Siguion-Reyna (1991-98: 4 titles)
Toto Natividad (1992-2017: 7 titles)
J. Erastheo Navoa (1992: 1 title)
Junn P. Cabreira (1993: 1 title)
Augusto Salvador (1993: 1 title)
Alan Chui Chung-San & Yuen Bun (1995: 1 title)

Francis Posadas (1997-99: 2 titles)
Joey del Rosario (1998: 1 title)
Jeffrey Jeturian (1999-2006: 6 titles)
Ike Jarlego Jr. (1999: 1 title)
Jon Red (1999: 1 title)
Olivia M. Lamasan (2000-04: 2 titles)
Joyce Bernal (2001-09: 3 titles)
Jose Javier Reyes (2001-03: 2 titles)
Joel Lamangan (2001-13: 3 titles)
Lav Diaz (2002-13: 3 titles)

Rory B. Quintos (2002: 1 title)
Wenn V. Deramas (2003: 1 title)
Mark Meily (2003: 1 title)
Khavn (2016-17: 5 titles)
Auraeus Solito (2005: 1 title)
Emmanuel Dela Cruz (2005: 1 title)
Sherad Anthony Sanchez (2006-12: 2 titles)
Brillante Mendoza (2007-16: 5 titles)
Cathy Garcia-Sampana (2007: 1 title)
Adolfo Alix Jr. (2007-17: 5 titles)

Joselito Altarejos (2008-19: 3 titles)
Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil (2008-16: 2 titles)
Francis Xavier Pasion (2008: 1 title)
Tara Illenberger (2008-17: 2 titles)
Richard V. Somes (2008: 1 title)
Soxy Topacio (2009: 1 title)
Raya Martin (2009: 1 title)
Vic Acedillo Jr. (2009: 1 title)
Monti Parungao (2009-11: 2 titles)
Armando Lao (2009: 1 title)

Chris Martinez (2010: 1 title)
John Sayles (2010: 1 title)
Sheron R. Dayoc (2010: 1 title)
Remton Siega Zuasola (2010: 1 title)
Lawrence Fajardo (2011-15: 4 titles)
Marlon N. Rivera (2011: 1 title)
Jade Castro (2011-19: 2 titles)
Ruel S. Bayani (2011: 1 title)
Brandon Relucio & Ivan Zaldarriaga (2011: 1 title)
Dominic Zapata (2012: 1 title)

Marie Jamora (2012: 1 title)
Arnel Mardoquio (2012: 1 title)
Erik Matti (2013: 1 title)
Hannah Espia (2013: 1 title)
Sigrid Andrea Bernardo (2013-19: 3 titles)
Keith Deligero (2013-18: 3 titles)
Mae Cruz-Alviar (2014: 1 title)
Giancarlo Abrahan (2014-19: 2 titles)
Perci M. Intalan (2014: 1 title)
Antoinette Jadaone (2014: 1 title)

Zig Madamba Dulay (2015: 1 title)
Ralston Jover (2015-19: 5 titles)
King Palisoc (2015: 1 title)
Jerrold Tarog (2015: 1 title)
Matthew Abaya (2016: 1 title)
Paolo Villaluna (2016: 1 title)
Louie Ignacio (2016: 1 title)
Bagane Fiola (2016: 1 title)
Jun Robles Lana (2016: 1 title)
Mikhail Red (2016-17: 2 titles)

Arnel Barbarona (2017: 1 title)
Treb Monteras II (2017: 1 title)
Irene Villamor (2018-20: 3 titles)
Jason Paul Laxamana (2018: 1 title)
Roman Perez Jr. (2018: 1 title)
Dan Villegas (2018: 1 title)
Veronica Velasco (2019: 1 title)
Kim Bong-han (2020: 1 title)
Dodo Dayao (2020: 1 title)
Dolly Dulu (2020: 1 title)

Conclusion

Index

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Di Ingon ’Nato

English Title: Not Like Us
Language: Cebuano
Year of Release: 2011
Directors & Screenwriters: Brandon Relucio & Ivan Zaldarriaga
Producer: Cinema One Originals

Cast: Rez Cortez, Franco Reyes, Mercedes Cabral, Donna Gimeno, Jeffrey Ogario, Gabriel Jon Abanto, Gregg Tecson, Marlon Hofer, Bernard Catindig, Aya Ng, Nathaniel Rubio, Cara Muaña Rosende, Ria Araneta, Lito Cardeño, Daday Melgar, Joe Monteño, Ligaya Rabago, Vingenr Tan, Lord Padua, Diane, Mata, Rita Sabal, Ronyel Compra, Dodong, Fatima Padua, Aurora Pacure

Lauro, the captain of a remote barangay or village in Cebu Province, is alerted by some of his constituents to a deadly infectious outbreak, tracked from mysterious instances of residents or outsiders getting killed in apparently violent ways. His daughter, who works as medic in the barangay health center, is able to determine that the diseased return to life after they die and acquire a hankering for human flesh. A priest and a pagan healer contend in having the right explanation (and consequent solution) for the phenomenon, but their use of magic doesn’t stop the illness from spreading. In a parallel development, Istoy, a farmer, sees one such hacked-up body. When his wife is attacked by a neighbor, he uses his bolo to kill the assailant. His wife worries that he committed a crime, but he becomes more anxious when her condition rapidly deteriorates.

The zombie-apocalypse subgenre is so overfamiliar that one could already predict how its elements of contagion and consequent social breakdown could function in any sample. But Di Ingon ’Nato’s impoverished agricultural context provides a resonance that compatriots and invaders alike might do well to learn from: “Filipino farmers hacking the undead,” as co-director Ivan Zaldarriega half-jokingly stated in a journal interview with genre specialist Andrew Leavold. Beyond the admittedly distressing representation of the repressed, historical incidents after the film’s release added retrospective value on stations both national (the practice of extrajudicial killings during the authoritarian regime of a Visayan President) and international (the intensification of the global Covid-19 pandemic). A narrative that turns on unstoppable contagion that results in widespread and arbitrary casualties would be hampered by severely constricted budgetary resources, a problem that Di Ingon ’Nato, alongside countless other indie productions, confronted. The filmmakers atypically resolved this quandary by taking advantage of their limitations: minimizing the casting of professional performers, shooting in remote locales, apportioning the use of gore in judiciously effective closeups, furnishing sound effects for subtle and well-timed blasts. Along with a few careful strokes at character development, the effect curiously results in an embrace of the monstrous—more pronounced than in the usual zombie-apocalypse outing. With the possibly permanent loss of what may be Philippine cinema’s supreme zombie film, Celso Ad. Castillo’s Kung Bakit Dugo ang Kulay ng Gabi (Night of the Zombies, 1973), Di Ingon ’Nato compensates satisfactorily enough; the fact that both are set in rural locales, as are several other horror entries in this list, could have made for productive analysis if the Castillo film could be recovered and considered as the others’ predecessor.

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Tambolista

English Translation: Drummer
English Title: Drumbeat
Year of Release: 2007 / B & W
Director: Adolfo Alix Jr. [as Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.]
Screenwriter: Ave Regina S. Tayag
Producers: Cinema One Originals & Ignite Media

Cast: Jiro Manio, Coco Martin, Sid Lucero, Anita Linda, Fonz Deza, Ricky Davao, Susan Africa, Simon Ibarra, Jhersie Young, Zyra dela Cerna, Mosang

Jason and Billy, whose parents have to stay in a hospital when their mother delivered their sister, invite their neighbor Pablo after he leaves his rental space because his landlord caught him in bed with his wife. All are short of money: Billy needs to spring for an abortion for his girlfriend, Jason wants to buy a drum set so he can play for a band, and Pablo has to find a new place to stay. The brothers get by doing favors for their neighbors while Pablo offers his body to prospective clients of either gender. When the eccentric and quarrelsome elderly lady across the street asks them to exchange smaller bills for her money, they cook up the idea of burglarizing her.

An appreciation for Tambolista can be enhanced by situating it in the tradition of the multicharacter youth films of the previous millennium. The male-focused entries tended then to depict the characters’ hijinks, carefree and harmless; but as a millennial product, released toward the end of a still-democratic era, the film enables us to see how neoliberalism has finally caught up with the very citizens we’re expected to shield from the harsh realities of modern existence. Director Adolfo Alix Jr. observed twin strategies, one old-timey and one forward-looking, to enhance his material: in shooting in black and white, he facilitates a throwback to the social-realist treatments of the First Golden Age, while in fractalizing the temporal order of events, he provides an equivalent of the social media-engendered confusion and distractedness that would increasingly afflict young people. The combination is unexpectedly yet remarkably effective, but also, in being too new-fashioned yet old-looking, accounts for how easily the film could be overlooked in comparison with his other output. Tambolista, rather than any number of prematurely acclaimed works, is where to start with this restless, unpredictable, admittedly uneven filmmaker.

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Imoral

English Title: Immoral
Year of Release: 2008
Director: Adolfo Alix Jr. [as Adolfo B. Alix Jr.]
Screenwriter: Jerry Gracio
Producer: Bicycle Pictures

Cast: Katherine Luna, Paolo Paraiso, Arnold Reyes, Edgar Allan Guzman, Perla Bautista, Kristoffer King, Adriana Agcaoili, Cherrie Madrigal, Angeli Bayani, Adrian Racho, Agnes de Guzman, Rolly Palmes, Armando A. Reyes, Maxie Evangelista, Melvin Catubag, Kennyron Aroffo, Jerome Zamora, Marcie Rosario, Lisa Arnaiz, Herwey Naredo, Jojo Manalili, Johnson Orca

Finding they cannot afford the living spaces they want to rent, Abi and Dante allow their friend Jonathan to get a residence for them. He introduces Abi as his wife and Dante as his brother-in-law to the religious landlady, when in fact Dante is the lover that he and Abi share. Jonathan pays for the rent using his income as construction foreperson while Dante barely scrapes by as a cab driver, longing for the time when he can leave for overseas work. Aside from defending their arrangement with her mother and sister, Abi makes sure that Dante doesn’t lose hope from their destitution and strives to be a friend to Jonathan, whose friendship with a construction worker incites Dante’s jealous rage. A sudden and unexpected windfall, however, threatens to throw their lives into disarray.

Before the internet-assisted boys’ love (BL) craze disseminated throughout Southeast Asia and reached the Philippines during the lockdown period of the last global pandemic, gay cinema was a specialized trend that actually occasioned the country’s first digital-format theater screenings. The films did not differ all that much from the then-forthcoming BL entries, which in turn also mirrored the same masculinist middle-class limitations of several new “queer” cinema samples from the US. Imoral may initially resemble the typical essentially conservative text in being low-end, domestic-focused, and anti-feminine, but it makes enough subtle adjustments to distinguish itself as one of the rare gay films with social awareness, more responsive actually to indigent conditions. It doesn’t shy away from class- and gender-based discord, but it also finds ways of uncovering how less-privileged citizens attain measures of acceptance on their own terms, with the striving for basic decency always an ideal within reach, if difficult to grasp. The one character tactfully rejected by the central trio is the pushy proselytizer who owns their space—a sign that better days may yet be in the offing for the gender outlaws in our midst.

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Isda

English Title: Fable of the Fish
Additional Language: Bikol
Year of Release: 2011
Director: Adolfo Alix Jr.
Screenwriter: Jerry Gracio
Producers: Cinemalaya Foundation & Phoenix Features

Cast: Cherry Pie Picache, Bembol Roco, Anita Linda, Rosanna Roces, Angel Aquino, Alan Paule, Evelyn Vargas, Arnold Reyes, Jess Evardone, Darlene Anderson, Pamela Juan, Angeli Bayani, Leon Miguel, Bjorn Aguilar, Kerbie Zamora

Merlina Sagaral and her husband Miguel migrate from distant Pangasinan province. They rent space in a landfill where the residents scrounge for materials they could resell. The wives talk about how having a child enables them to keep their husbands; despite being elderly, Lina longs to bear a child when her landlady shares news of her own pregnancy. Eventually Lina shows signs of gestation and Miguel, who gets angry when his neighbors tease him about infertility, is overjoyed. Lina’s birth pains occur during a typhoon, when their floor is flooded, but her baby leaps into the water and is discovered to be a fish. A TV reporter takes an interest in Lina’s story and becomes her friend, but Miguel cannot accept that he fathered a non-human child and becomes an alcoholic. When the couple discover an anonymous victim of extrajudicial killing dumped on the landfill and look for anything valuable he might have on him, they find a stash of money that enables them to upgrade their living condition.

Despite its English title, Isda unfolds as a straightforward realist narrative, and uses the fantastic premise of (for want of a better term) monstrous childbirth as its means of providing an intimate account of the lives of a dispossessed elderly couple. Even the fact that they could get pregnant is miraculous enough, considering the travails of migration as well as the health hazards of living amid the methane emission of the landfill. Yet the cast’s proficient realization of the absurd, essentially comic situation in which their characters are lodged, promotes a mounting empathy that acquires conflictive dimensions when the central couple find their marriage foundering because of the unusual nature of their offspring. As portrayed by Cherry Pie Picache, whose rendition of benevolence is unmatched among local actors, Lina becomes the character whose devotion to her fish-child is full-fledged—making understandable how the women in her orbit share in her maternalistic concerns and even how her husband occasionally finds himself bending to her will despite his shame and resentment. The film material itself takes off from a tabloid report that turned into a short-lived urban legend, but the means by which its collection of talents reified what would have otherwise remained an incredulous account is the movie’s singular hook, line, and sinker attraction.

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Porno

Year of Release: 2013
Director: Adolfo Alix Jr. [as Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.]
Screenwriter: Ralston Jover
Producers: Cinemalaya Foundation, Phoenix Features, Deux Lux Mea Films

Cast: Adriana Gomez, Janvier Daily, Yul Servo, Rosanna Roces, Bembol Roco, Yumi, Alan Paule, Carlo Aquino, Peggy Rico Tuazon, Lucky Mercado, Bong Villanueva, Ronnel Lintag, Star Ledesma, Jeremy Ian, Nasser Lubay, TJ dela Paz, Ricky Davao, Anita Linda, Ermie Concepcion, Armando A. Reyes, Divine Tetay, Angel Aquino, Paul Holmes, John Arkin Tan, Liza Diño, Brent Michael Borro

A man and woman in a motel room enact an excessive form of sadomasochistic activity. A separate couple, Xander and Mimi, have what appears to be a less unusual encounter, with Xander servicing Mimi for money; later Digos arrives and berates Xander, who’s been temporarily spirited from prison, for failing an assassination assignment. Aleks, who professionally dubs silent footage surreptitiously taken of couples in motel rooms, is teased by his female colleague and criticized by their employer for lacking in authenticity in his voice-overs; he nevertheless persists with his private webcam flirtations. Finally Alessandra (Alex for short), a star attraction in her workplace’s Follies de Mwah shows, has to figure out a way to interact with the upcoming birthday celebration of her estranged son, who hasn’t seen her since before her gender transition.

Although a 16mm. print of Celso Ad. Castillo’s Nympha (1971) might still be tracked to the inconsiderate borrower who failed to return it to the government film archive, it would be safe to conclude that no sample from the first era of pornographic film production (building up to the declaration by Ferdinand Marcos Sr. of martial law in 1972) can be accessed. A few titles fortunately remain from the next period, coinciding with the struggling years of the dictatorship through the early years after the people-power revolt in 1986. Porno though can be classed with a number of globally celebrated mindfucks, even if it doesn’t adhere to all the definitional requirements of the genre as spelled out in Linda Williams’s seminal volume Hard Core (1989). The multiversal chain of events invites diverse and conflictive readings—a result of deliberate asymmetrical and ambivalent plotting, per scriptwriter Ralston Jover (Facebook Messenger, March 9, 2025). The final episode, where the trans woman character’s nickname resembles that of the preceding episode’s sexually troubled young man, either can provoke a reconsideration of the film’s entire narratory design, or it can incite nothing more momentous than a shrug. Both responses would be equally appropriate for a film whose concern for the complications of sex work that contemporary working-class natives confront on a daily basis necessarily has to bypass the niceties of moral and anecdotal orderliness.

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Madilim ang Gabi

English Title: Dark Is the Night
Additional Language: Cebuano
Year of Release: 2017
Director & Screenwriter: Adolfo Alix Jr. [as Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.]
Producers: Sound Investment Equity LLC, Deux Lux Mea Films, Oro de Siete Productions, Ukon Films, Swift Distribution

Cast: Phillip Salvador, Gina Alajar, Bembol Roco, Felix Roco, Jason Abalos, Archie Alemania, Angel Aquino, Angeli Bayani, Perla Bautista, Iza Calzado, Sebastian Castro, Manuel Chua, Alssandra de Rossi, Julio Diaz, Flora Gasser, Cherie Gil, Laurice Guillen, Ben Isaac, Angelina Kanapi, Kristoffer King, Anita Linda, William Lorenzo, Sid Lucero, Zanjoe Marudo, Jess Mendoza, Mikoy Morales, Kenken Nuyad, Kenneth Ocampo, Elizabeth Oropesa, Alan Paule, Ross Pesigan, Cherry Pie Picache, Rosanna Roces, Jeremy Sabido, Arvic Tan, Erlinda Villalobos, Cris Villonco, Kirst Viray

Sara, who functions as enforcer for Kidlat, the neighborhood drug lord, worries when the effects of the war on drugs declared by then-President Rodrigo Duterte result in the extrajudicial killing of several of her neighboring acquaintances. Her son Felix, a drug user, worries when he hears that his mother’s name is on a law-enforcement kill list. With her husband Lando, she pleads with Kidlat to be relieved of her designation and requests exemption from having to pay for their last batch of sachets of shabu or methamphetamine. Kidlat imposes a final assignment, which Sara attempts to bypass, but when Felix fails to return home, she and Lando contact the police force for help.

Cinéma vérité is better known among regular audiences as the practice of developing a film fiction around events as these unfold in real life. The French New Wave auteurs who popularized it actually drew from a documentarian, Jean Rouch, who made films in Africa. Not surprisingly, our major Second Golden Age practitioners took to the approach after it proved feasible in the New American Cinema. Celluloid production, however, was both too pricey and clunky to enable seamless integration of documentary footage with staged scenes. This in no way should diminish the triumph of Madilim ang Gabi, although it makes understandable how critical evaluators could believe that its bona fides are inadequate in relation to its predecessors, or that better samples will presently be presented. The timeline and locales cannot be denied: the film was made as soon as President Rodrigo Duterte declared and implemented his disastrous war on drugs, with the actors roaming the slums of Manila to be able to capture the authenticity of historical realities that appalled observers everywhere. The use of name thespians even in minor roles becomes understandable in retrospect—authorities would think twice before harassing production activities that involved prestige performers, with Gina Alajar and Phillip Salvador retreading the doomed working-class characters they played in Lino Brocka’s Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (My Country, 1984) but with a more realistic twist: as in the previous year’s war-on-drugs entry, Brillante Mendoza’s Ma’ Rosa, poverty implicates everyone in the state’s fascistic affirmations, whether they’re guilty of drug-trade involvement or not. MaG relies on an informed audience’s recollection of scene highlights from antiauthoritarian film-texts, and may be accused of drawing in possibly more then-current issues than the narrative could sustain. But its cinéma-vérité accomplishment abides and proves that we can look forward to more laudable attempts in the foreseeable future.

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Midnight in a Perfect World

Year of Release: 2020
Director & Screenwriter: Dodo Dayao
(From a story by Dodo Dayao & Carljoe Javier)
Producers: Globe Studios & Epicmedia Productions

Cast: Jasmine Curtis-Smith, Glaiza de Castro, Anthony Falcon, Dino Pastrano, Bing Pimentel, Soliman Cruz, Dolly de Leon, Charles Aaron Salazar, Brian Sy, Aljhon Agnila, Nate Agustin, Rolly Catchuela, Elmar Flores, Timmy Harn, Patti Lapus, Joey Pinera, Jerico Ramota, Veronica Reyes, Jeriko Tan, Hank Valentine

In an unspecified future that still resembles the present, when the country has attained a level of developmental sanguinity, four friends decide to venture outdoors despite the possibility of a localized midnight blackout and their awareness that a mutual acquaintance has disappeared. They go to a club to score a new kind of powerful hallucinogenic drug but after their seller is killed, they leave the place. A power outage causes them to panic and they run along with a crowd of strangers fleeing from a death squad. One of them, Tonichi, knows of a safehouse where they could hide; but when they arrive, they realize he’s no longer with them. His panicked phone calls make them realize he’s lost. As they attempt to figure out their hiding place, they meet Alma, an older lady who says she’d already been to two other safehouses. They plan to go outdoors to save Tonichi but then Glenn gets left behind. Mimi and Jinka have to rely on each other for survival, not just from the death squad but also from a monster that lurks in the darkness.

Midnight in a Perfect World embodies the exception that proves the rule: that independent cinema should not necessarily be valorized just for existing, or else it raises the vexed predicament of dismissing a mainstream that had proved capable of containing great work in the past. It sets up the challenge of working in sci fi-horror, a generic hybrid routinely associated with developed economies because of its technological assumptions. What an adequately exposed practitioner like Dodo Dayao has figured out from existing samples provides the key for his audacious approach: that, on a certain level, the social impact of late capital does not differ much from one culture or period to another. The spaces, services, and law-enforcement policies for underclass citizens will be recognizable to anyone whose political sensibilities are sufficiently rooted in the here and now. From this point moving forward, the apparent limits of indigent production get transformed into useful resources, with darkness, squalor, inhospitable outdoors and constrictive indoors, and barely adequate hardware serving to intensify the atmospherics of fear. The attentive readings of an age-grouped collection of responsive performers draw us into a series of geographical and narrative culs-de-sac, while the seemingly unrelated prelude initiates the slasher structure that more or less gets observed along the way; the standard global-indie earnest demonization of lumpen characters that marred his debut feature has also apparently decamped for now. Once we realize that the confusion—of the characters and therefrom the audience—becomes an essential component of the presentation’s promise of pleasure, we’re well on our way.

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