Filipino Movies

A young man unwillingly becomes embroiled in a terrorist plot in Cavite, a low-budget digital video project from Filipino-American co-writers/co-directors Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana. The film, shot with a jittery hand-held camera that is almost constantly in motion, opens with a panic-stricken man bringing a bomb onto a Manila bus, then cuts to San Diego, where Adam (Gamazon) is working nights as a security guard and seems to be wasting his life away before he gets a call from his mother in the Philippines, telling him he needs to come home. He's sent off by a protracted transcontinental telephone argument with his American girlfriend, but things get much worse for Adam when he lands in Manila. His mother doesn't arrive to pick him up, and he soon discovers that someone has slipped a package containing a cell phone into his backpack. The phone rings, he picks it up, and his life is changed forever. On the other end of the line, a sinister voice tells Adam that his mother and sister are being held hostage, that his every move is being watched, and that if he doesn't do exactly as the voice tells him, his family will be killed. As he's led on a grisly tour of the impoverished Cavite region, Adam, a lapsed Muslim, soon realizes that his tormentor is a member of the notorious Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, which is fighting the Philippine government to get Muslim control of the southern section of the country. While sending him through his mysterious "assignment," the caller mocks Adam for his American ways, and his lack of awareness of his own culture. Cavite was selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art for inclusion in New Directors/New Films in 2006. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

An effeminate 12-year-old who dutifully plays mother to his criminal father and older siblings experiences a crisis of conscience after befriending an honest Manila cop in the sophomore feature from director Auraeus Solito. A young innocent whose devotion to his family finds him taking the place of his own deceased mother, Maxi spends most of his days cooking and doing the household chores. In the evening hours, Maxi can often be found on the streets shopping and taking in a film at the local DVD stand with the many homeless children who seek a momentary escape from their bleak existence. When Maxi is rescued from a group of local thugs late one night by kindly rookie police officer Victor, his attraction to the kind-hearted and trustworthy Victor soon finds him torn between the criminal behavior of his family and his desire to follow a more honorable path in life. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A budding writer discovers that money sometimes marks the dividing line between love and lust in this coming of age drama from Philippine director Auraeus Solito. A would-be poet (Aeious) in his late teens is coming to terms with the fact he's gay, though he tries to hide his attraction to men from his mother (Madeleine Nicolas), with whom he still lives. One night, the young man slips out to visit a gay bar, where he quickly becomes infatuated with a ruggedly handsome exotic dancer (Aries). The young poet discovers that the dancer turns tricks on the side, and is obsessed with the notion he could satisfy his sexual craving if he had enough money. The young man doesn't have the funds for a date with the dancer, but he's willing to sell his collection of rare comic books and action figures to raise the cash, and arranges for a date on New Year's Eve. But while the poet can't help but feel love for the dancer, the handsome rent boy is motivated by business, not emotions. Boy received its North American premiere at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Three years after his "experimental" phase wrapped with the jarring, iconoclastic Container, Swedish enfant terrible Lukas Moodysson returned for this sprawling, ambitious social drama. Echoing Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel and featuring two Hollywood A-listers as his leads, Mammoth also marked the director's premier English-language project. Michelle Williams and Gael García Bernal co-star as Ellen and Leo, New York marrieds; she's an emergency-room surgeon, he's a listless, vaguely dissatisfied Internet game designer. They have a family, albeit an unconventional and dysfunctional one: seven-year-old daughter Jackie (Sophie Nyweide) is practically being raised by a 24/7 Filipino caregiver, Gloria (Marife Necesito), who dotes on her incessantly. This provokes the envy of Ellen and the resentment of Gloria's two geographically estranged sons, Manuel (Martin Delos Santos) and Salvador (Jan Nicdao), who repeatedly phone their mom from Manila and plead with her to come home. Gloria's mother grows so distressed by this behavior that she attempts to show Salvador just how easy his life is in comparison to that of others, which leads to unanticipated tragic consequences. Meanwhile, Leo teams up with a shifty associate, Bob (Tom McCarthy), flies to Thailand, and encounters a freewheeling, laid-back working mother named Cookie (Run Srinikornchot). Step by step, the actions that Leo takes while abroad create a domino effect and alter everyone's lives in irreversible ways. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

As eight convicts sentenced to work release find their numbers quickly dwindling, they quickly realize that a vicious killer is thinning their ranks in a tense tale of jailhouse horrors starring Joe Estevez and Todd Bridges. One by one their lives are being snuffed out in the most grisly of ways, but as the terrified survivors begin to narrow down the killer's identity, the stakes continue to rise along with the body count. Time is fast running out for these hardened criminals, and despite the verdict read at their trials it seems as if someone has decided that their sentences just weren't as stiff as they should have been. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Filipino filmmaker Chito S. Roño directs the action-drama Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure. Lolo Melo (Armando Goyena) is an old Filipino man living the U.S. who tells war stories to his grandson Jobert (Danilo Barrios). Flashbacks to 1944 tell the story of his participation during WWII, when his troop was ordered to bury the Yamashita treasure. When Lolo gets kidnapped, Jobert goes back to Manila in order to find the hidden treasure and save his grandfather. Meanwhile, a government official (Albert Martinez) and a local bad guy (Vic Diaz) are also after the treasure. This film won best picture at the 2002 Manila Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Joel Lamangan and Eric Quizon direct this big-hearted romantic comedy set in modern Manila. Annie (Lorna Tolentino) is hell-bent on finding Mr. Right. After a long and difficult search, she thinks that she has found him in the guise of Ron (Albert Martinez), a rising young executive. Ron seems completely unaware of Annie's pronounced attraction to him until he gets drunk at an office party, and he and Annie stumble off to have sex in his car. Ron has little interest in marrying her, largely because he is gay and deeply attached to his lover Nick (Quizon). One month later -- after learning that she is pregnant -- Annie appears at Ron's doorstep with her belongings in tow and immediately tries to "convert" him. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Five Filipino-American friends living in New York City deal with love, sex, friendship, careers, and cultural identity in this romantic comedy-drama directed by veteran Philippine actress Laurice Guillen. Tere Sanchez (Cherry Pie Picache) is an accountant who is in her early forties, single, and not especially happy about it. Tere is an excellent cook, and often throws dinner parties for her friends, and the arrival of her old friend Lorna (Sol Oca) from Manila is all the reason she needs to invite her friends over for a feast. Mike (Christopher De Leon) is a former political journalist who is now enjoying the fruits of a lucrative career as a newspaper editor, but he wonders if he left his principles behind along the way; he's also feeling unfulfilled in his marriage to Gigi (Susan Valdez-LeGoff). Gerry (Ricky Davao) is a advertising copywriter who is afraid to tell his friends and family that he's gay, though circumstances may well drive him out of the closet. Raul (Paolo Montalban) is a good-looking ladies' man who prefers to date Caucasians, and lacks a certain amount of emotional maturity. And Marissa (Dina Bonnevie) is on the surface a well-to-do social butterfly; however, deep inside she's woefully insecure, and is afraid to confront her boyfriend Sam (Randy Becker) about his constant infidelity. Meanwhile, Lorna confesses that while she's married to a wealthy man in Manila, she's terribly unhappy, and is considering staying in America as an illegal alien. American Adobo was the first American-Philippine co-production to open in three major American cities at once (New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco); incidentally, adobo is a spicy chicken or pork dish popular in the Philippines. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Paul is a rural Filipino who travels to Manila after his gay American GI lover leaves the Philippines. He takes a job as a dancer but quickly becomes a male prostitute in order to survive. The seamy, squalid barrio is overseen by the violent, corrupt cop known as "The Kid." Paul and his roommate Noel short change The Kid on some drug money in hopes of rescuing Paul's sister from the brothel. Bambi is a pretty prostitute who helps the duo and provides Paul with his first heterosexual experience. She saves Paul from a savage beating by The Kid. The feature contains nudity and several homosexual encounters. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this Filipino-made supernatural tale, a man is chosen by his dead uncle to battle the forces of evil. He fights a being called "The Prince of Magic," who shoots rays from his hands, makes heads spin around and hypnotizes people. He finally faces Satan himself and engages him in a battle of magic. ~ Brian Gusse, Rovi

Surely Benjamin Appel's novel Fortress in the Rice was more interesting than its static film adaptation Cry of Battle. Van Heflin plays a crusty soldier of fortune fighting with the Philippine partisans during World War II. James MacArthur co-stars as the wealthy, aimless son of a businessman who joins the partisan cause for a lark. He is toughened up by Heflin and romanced by local girl Rita Moreno. Life's just full of surprises, isn't it? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi