Even the strongest of principles are dwarfed by the feeling of shame that comes in the wake of supporting this ambitious, yet ‘trashy’ production.
Local cinema seems to be having a post-pandemic resurgence, with two or more local titles debuting on the same day. Having seen the past three years getting deprived of such energy, it feels good to see and to know, that Philippine entertainment has finally attained an already overwhelming sense of normalcy.
While foreign titles unsurprisingly remain the ones to pull off the much bigger numbers at the box office, some Filipino productions have achieved a level of success that was completely unheard of in the last two to three years.
Let’s not forget the recent Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), which brought in more than half a billion-peso worth of box office receipts.
On the heels of such renewed vigor, comes the thrill of re-capturing Filipino moviegoers and drawing them back to the big screen. This week alone, three films are simultaneously showing on hundreds of cinema screens, nationwide, alongside big Hollywood productions such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Whale, and The Wedding Hustler, among others. The competition is wild between local and foreign titles. But the battle among the three local films is much wilder.
But let’s not talk about all three.
This particular film, like the other two, is controversial in every sense of the word. Not only did its showrunners spend a great deal of time waging word wars with the director of one of the other two films, leaders of several groups we talked to, verified that watching the film is as good as spending a fortune on worthless junk. Is it that bad? We wonder.
Our sources claimed if one thinks seeing the other film is revolting, seeing this one is no better.
These reactions should not surprise me as the predecessor of the film did not receive wildly flattering praises, anyway. You can say, there was somewhat hope that this sophomore outing would be better than the first, but it did not. Imagine the horror of hopeful moviegoers, who simply made attendance to support the director, whose political leaning is no different from theirs.
Trying hard to be what it is trying to be, as described by one of our witnesses–the film has wasted a great deal of talent—an entire ensemble of talent, actually—for an unsalvageable material. There is reportedly no redeeming quality to be squeezed out of this film aside from the sincerity of the talents who practically sacrificed their prestige as actors for a piece of crap, all in the name of a shared principle.
Those who braved in staying in the theater until the closing credits now have this wish: that this film flops horribly, enough to convince its producers not to allow a third installment, to come to life.
After all, trilogies have also become a thing these days.
