Kusina Kings

(Note to self: wow this is super late, I was sick but whatevs)

Face it folks, you are probably not going to go into Kusina Kings expecting The 400 Blows. It's a relatively mainstream-flavored comedy from Victor Villanueva, who directed the hilarious Patay na Si Hesus. While it does tread familiar comedic ground, it occasionally touches upon comedy that is more edgy, bizarre and irreverent.

Kusina Kings draws from many inspirations, mostly Iron Chef-style cooking shows and cooking manga/anime like Shokugeki no Soma (a.k.a. Food Wars) and Cooking Master Boy. It's about Ronnie and Benjie (Zanjoe Marudo and Empoy Marquez), two friends who decide to open a restaurant. The resto doesn't click with people, so they try to do things to survive. Eventually Benjie gambles the fate of his restaurant by joining a competition against an old rival, Gian (Ryan Bang), but gets into an accident before he can participate. While comatose, Benjie's spirit roams free and helps Ronnie manage the restaurant as they head towards an inevitable confrontation against Gian and his goons.

While the film is hilarious (albeit sometimes a little corny) from start to finish, it feels like it's holding back from truly outrageous humor. Based on the outtakes, there seem to be a number of scenes that were cut out from the theatrical cut, and that makes me curious what happened creatively behind the scenes. Also, while it does draw a lot of inspiration from Iron Chef etc, it doesn't focus on the one thing that made those shows interesting: the actual act of cooking. These shows pride themselves on food porn, and in Kusina Kings' case, it's barely there aside from the final cook-off. And considering that we already have Zanjoe Marudo and Nathalie Hart* in the cast, there aren't any Food Wars-y scenes where the food is so delicious, characters' clothes disintegrate and they ride, naked, on magic dragons to Chinese heaven or something.

That said, Zanjoe and Empoy are great, and when the gags land, they LAND. Kusina Kings isn't perfect, but I wasn't expecting perfection. Sure, I'd have preferred to watch something a little less restrained, but I was entertained, so no real complaints here.

*Empoy too, I guess, if you're into that. I won't judge