Probably the only country whose cinema can rival the Japanese freedom of expression is the Philippines, where art, however, seems to come from completely different sources than the Japanese one; from financial and political instability, from the different stages of colonialism, from the intense impact of Catholicism, all of which create a rather chaotic setting that always benefitted art of any kind. It is due to this concept, as much as the richness of its cinematic past and present, that we have decided to focus so intently on the country’s cinema this year. Granted, our knowledge of the past is not so intent, since Amp took a turn of covering a more wider part of Asia after 2019, which is why the particular list is the biggest among the ones focusing on the various decades of Filipino cinema.
Without further ado, here are 35 great Filipino films of the 00s, with...
Without further ado, here are 35 great Filipino films of the 00s, with...
- 5/14/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Both the most famous, for being the first Filipino film to net Best Director Award in Cannes, among a number of other awards from festivals all over the world, and the most notorious, considering how a number of critics slammed it, “Kinatay” is definitely a landmark for local cinema, as much as for Mendoza, whose international legend essentially begun here.
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
The film is essentially split into two parts. The first revolves around the marriage of Peping, a 20-year-old criminology student, with a classmate of his, 19-year-old Cecile, following the birth of their son, while highlighting their everyday life. Peping, however, is in dire need of money, which is why he agrees to the proposition of his schoolmate, Abyong, to work as a part-time errand boy for a local syndicate that collects protection fees from various businesses in Manila. One night,...
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
The film is essentially split into two parts. The first revolves around the marriage of Peping, a 20-year-old criminology student, with a classmate of his, 19-year-old Cecile, following the birth of their son, while highlighting their everyday life. Peping, however, is in dire need of money, which is why he agrees to the proposition of his schoolmate, Abyong, to work as a part-time errand boy for a local syndicate that collects protection fees from various businesses in Manila. One night,...
- 4/6/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Competing for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival, “Thy Womb” eventually won three special prizes by other Italian film groups, while taking up Metro Manila Film Festival by storm with 7 awards, among a number of others from festivals all over the world.
After a rather shockingly realistic birth scene, we are introduced to the two protagonists, Shaleha, a middle aged Tausug woman who works as a midwife for the small Muslim community, she and her husband, fisherman Bangas-An inhabit. Soon we learn the irony in her life, as, despite constantly delivering babies, she cannot have children herself, a point of friction in the otherwise calm life she shares with her husband. In an act of rather altruistic love she decides to be the one to search for a new wife for Bangas-An, who will eventually give him the child he so much longs for. The rest...
After a rather shockingly realistic birth scene, we are introduced to the two protagonists, Shaleha, a middle aged Tausug woman who works as a midwife for the small Muslim community, she and her husband, fisherman Bangas-An inhabit. Soon we learn the irony in her life, as, despite constantly delivering babies, she cannot have children herself, a point of friction in the otherwise calm life she shares with her husband. In an act of rather altruistic love she decides to be the one to search for a new wife for Bangas-An, who will eventually give him the child he so much longs for. The rest...
- 4/1/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Nora Aunor is one of the most recognizable figures of Filipino cinema, with a career that started in the 60s and continues until today, which has netted her innumerable awards and a recognition as Philippine National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts. Adolfo “Borinanga” Alix Jr has cooperated with her in the past before, on films like “Padre de Pamilya,” “Whistleblower,” and “Kinabukasan” (short) but this time, he decided to have her as a villain, although she is always the heroine in her films. “His effort has already netted him the Netpac award at Hanoi International Film Festival.
Anita Rosales first came into prominence playing villain roles in movies, during the “First Golden Age” of Philippine cinema. Now decades later, she finds herself barely recognized, not to mention broke, while intimations of death, the upcoming lockdown, and an ex-husband are putting even more problems on her shoulders. As the movie starts,...
Anita Rosales first came into prominence playing villain roles in movies, during the “First Golden Age” of Philippine cinema. Now decades later, she finds herself barely recognized, not to mention broke, while intimations of death, the upcoming lockdown, and an ex-husband are putting even more problems on her shoulders. As the movie starts,...
- 3/19/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Brillante Mendoza has come under much scrutiny during the last few years, due to his closeness to President Duterte. “Amo”, a series that focuses on the government’s crackdown on narcotics that has cost the lives of thousands since 2016, did not do much to help the veteran director. Calls for the cancellation of the first Philippine series to stream on Netflix have become more intense with time, while a mother, whose son was killed by unknown assailants after he was accused of peddling drugs, recently started a Change.org petition for the same purpose. Let us see, however, what is hidden beneath all this controversy.
The series follows a number of the members of an extended family, with the person of focus changing every few episodes. In that fashion, the story begins with Joseph, a high school student who lives partially with his mother and handicapped father and partially with his sister and brother-in-law,...
The series follows a number of the members of an extended family, with the person of focus changing every few episodes. In that fashion, the story begins with Joseph, a high school student who lives partially with his mother and handicapped father and partially with his sister and brother-in-law,...
- 5/10/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippine archipelago, has been a place of violent conflict since the 60s, when President Marcos’s tactics that promoted Christian settling in the area, resulted in the displacement of the local Muslim population. The Maguindanao massacre (2009), the Mamasapano clash (2015) and the Battle of Marawi (2017) are the latest in a series of bloody events, and the area is still under martial law, following the orders of President Duterte. Brillante Mendoza places his latest movie in this troubled location, in an effort that netted “Mindanao” 11 awards in the 45th Metro Manila Film Festival, including Best Picture, Director, Actor and Actress.
The rather unusual narrative unfolds in three, radically different axes, which eventually and occasionally intermingle. The first one revolves around Saima, a Muslim woman, who is arriving in Davao, passing a number of military checkpoints in order to reach the hospital that treats her baby daughter,...
The rather unusual narrative unfolds in three, radically different axes, which eventually and occasionally intermingle. The first one revolves around Saima, a Muslim woman, who is arriving in Davao, passing a number of military checkpoints in order to reach the hospital that treats her baby daughter,...
- 4/8/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Filipina actor, TV star, reality show host and social media queen Judy Ann Santos turns in a de-glammed, gently anguished, remarkably sympathetic performance in “Mindanao,” the latest title from prolific Filipino director Brillante Mendoza. Her watchability, however, comes despite a storytelling approach that is undercut by several unconvincing directorial decisions — chief among them the insertion of animated interludes that outline an only tangentially illuminating story of the princes and dragons who, legend has it, used to roam the eponymous region.
Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippine archipelago, has a troubled recent history beset by decades of conflict, and the 2017 declaration of island-wide martial law still stands. But despite a contextualizing opening note to that effect, it’s difficult to discern if there’s a political or social point Mendoza is trying to make; commentary about this fraught situation takes a deep back seat to the maudlin and manipulative main storyline,...
Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippine archipelago, has a troubled recent history beset by decades of conflict, and the 2017 declaration of island-wide martial law still stands. But despite a contextualizing opening note to that effect, it’s difficult to discern if there’s a political or social point Mendoza is trying to make; commentary about this fraught situation takes a deep back seat to the maudlin and manipulative main storyline,...
- 10/23/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Film Review: Serbis, Cannes, In Competition
Taking place mostly in a porno theater ironically, yet fittingly, named Family, "Serbis" is part homage to cinema, part intimate domestic drama that vividly details the tangled relations and all-too human frailties of an extended family running a theater in the provincial Philippines.
Director Brillante Mendoza continues the neo-realist vein of "Foster Child" and "Sling Shot" in "Serbis", but displays marked improvement -- both the grunge aesthetic and film language now bear his personal handwriting. To this, he adds some bristling sexuality, both gay and straight.
"Serbis" contains elements of soap opera from popular Philippine cinema and TV, but without any of the froth and lather. Unspooling at an almost real-time pace, with a narrative that is all foreplay and no conventional climax, the film won't win any commercial converts to the Philippine new wave. Festival and art-house bookings are optimistic though.
The film adopts a worldly and tolerant attitude in dramatizing the double standards in operation every day at a porn theater that has involved into a hotbed for rentboys to service gay clients (hence the title, which means "service"). Gena Pareno ("Kubrador") is a towering presence, who puts fire and tears into her multiple roles -- as a wife clenching the bitterness of abandonment, an aggrieved mother feeling betrayed by her children's divided loyalty to their father and the pillar that holds together the tottering family business.
But the theater itself may be the film's real star. Flooded toilets, running sores and steamy sex behind the projector that outperforms what's happening on screen create a dank, dripping texture and festering mood that echo most of Tsai's oeuvre.
The camera explores each nook and cranny of the dilapidated movie-house like an usher who knows his way round blindfolded, and the building, with its richly visual interior structures desperately in need of an overhaul, comes to symbolize poetically the predicament of its inhabitants and their moral ambiguity.
Cast: Gina Pareno, Jaclyn Jose, Coco Martin, Roxanne Jordan. Director: Brillante Mendoza. Screenwriter: Armando Lao. Producer: Ferdinand Lapuz. Director of photography: Odyssey Flores. Production designer: Benjamin Padero, Carlo Tabije. Music: Gian Gianan. Editor: Claire Villa-Real.
Center Stage Prods./Swift Prods.
Sales: Fortissimo Films.
No rating, 90 minutes.
Taking place mostly in a porno theater ironically, yet fittingly, named Family, "Serbis" is part homage to cinema, part intimate domestic drama that vividly details the tangled relations and all-too human frailties of an extended family running a theater in the provincial Philippines.
Director Brillante Mendoza continues the neo-realist vein of "Foster Child" and "Sling Shot" in "Serbis", but displays marked improvement -- both the grunge aesthetic and film language now bear his personal handwriting. To this, he adds some bristling sexuality, both gay and straight.
"Serbis" contains elements of soap opera from popular Philippine cinema and TV, but without any of the froth and lather. Unspooling at an almost real-time pace, with a narrative that is all foreplay and no conventional climax, the film won't win any commercial converts to the Philippine new wave. Festival and art-house bookings are optimistic though.
The film adopts a worldly and tolerant attitude in dramatizing the double standards in operation every day at a porn theater that has involved into a hotbed for rentboys to service gay clients (hence the title, which means "service"). Gena Pareno ("Kubrador") is a towering presence, who puts fire and tears into her multiple roles -- as a wife clenching the bitterness of abandonment, an aggrieved mother feeling betrayed by her children's divided loyalty to their father and the pillar that holds together the tottering family business.
But the theater itself may be the film's real star. Flooded toilets, running sores and steamy sex behind the projector that outperforms what's happening on screen create a dank, dripping texture and festering mood that echo most of Tsai's oeuvre.
The camera explores each nook and cranny of the dilapidated movie-house like an usher who knows his way round blindfolded, and the building, with its richly visual interior structures desperately in need of an overhaul, comes to symbolize poetically the predicament of its inhabitants and their moral ambiguity.
Cast: Gina Pareno, Jaclyn Jose, Coco Martin, Roxanne Jordan. Director: Brillante Mendoza. Screenwriter: Armando Lao. Producer: Ferdinand Lapuz. Director of photography: Odyssey Flores. Production designer: Benjamin Padero, Carlo Tabije. Music: Gian Gianan. Editor: Claire Villa-Real.
Center Stage Prods./Swift Prods.
Sales: Fortissimo Films.
No rating, 90 minutes.
- 5/18/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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