GMA Network and Regal Entertainment present their take on the charming body swap, and while the pace and length of the story are utterly insufficient to keep the theme’s mystifying allure, endearing performances from both de Santos and Diaz, still make this attempt work.
GMA Network
Actors: Kokoy de Santos, Shaira Diaz, Darwin Yu
Genre: Romance, Fantasy
Premise: A ladies’ man and a young lady who swindle people for a living, cross paths and unexpectedly switch bodies. They now have to face each other’s reality
Director:
Time slot: Sundays, 4:35 PM
Why You Should See It:
Now airing on an earlier timeslot, Regal Studio Presents, delivers yet another fun and magical story, which features the first team-up on a TV show of Shaira Diaz and the newly-signed Kapuso, Kokoy de Santos.
In this new story, de Santos plays the ‘pabling’ Marco, while Diaz is a scammer who disguises as an NGO agent to swindle money from people. Their characters cross paths, one day. With a strike of lightning and a roll of thunder, they find themselves trapped in each other’s bodies.
GMA Network and Regal Entertainment are putting their spin on the fascinating body-swapping phenomenon, which has been an increasingly favorite theme in film and television.
Filipino films like Here Comes the Bride (2010) and Momshies’ Ang Soul Mo Ay Akin (2021) have adopted the theme, and Japanese animation, Your Name, delivered a global sensation in 2016.
GMA Network’s attempt to create a similar success is greatly hindered by a few factors, but it’s the pacing of the story—just like the two previous titles—that keep it from delivering a solid storyline. As this just runs with a little more than 30 minutes of airtime, Ikaw Ako, Ako Ikaw, finds itself hampered with a loopholed and inconsistent script.
There is hardly enough room to build satisfying character development, and the story itself feels rushed and suffers from incompleteness.
That said, this Regal Studio Presents offering has some strong points to compensate for what it greatly lacks. Diaz and de Santos are successful in pulling off a chemistry that looks palatable onscreen. They are great as individual actors, too. De Santos has somewhat played a similar character when he portrayed the title role on the Web series, ‘Oh, Mando!’, last year.
Here, he takes on yet another feminine man, except that he is merely trying to play Diaz’s character using Marco. He makes his usual magic work again, here, covering up for Marco’s one-dimensionality with his quirk and inherent comic appeal.
Regal Studio Presents air a brand new story every Sunday, after Dear Uge on GMA Network. Watch ‘Ikaw Ako, Ako Ikaw’ teaser, below:
