March Movie Digest: Us Again, Hindi Tayo Pwede

NOTE: Spoilers for both films below.

The ghost of a love lost forever becomes more than literal in two recent local films - in both cases, the lost promise of such a love is so strong, it hangs around for dear (after)life, waiting for a chance to gain closure.

In Joy B. Aquino's Us Again, we are treated to a relationship that is said to burn like fireworks. Given its nature, Margie (Jane Oineza) and Mike (RK Bagatsing) have a relationship that should register as fiery and defiant, but unfortunately, it never does get as fiery as that, as the proceedings are pretty restrained, and both Bagatsing and Oineza undersell their love affair. This may be a creative decision, which doesn't exactly help matters.

Things get a little more interesting once we get to the aftermath of that love affair, with both characters dealing with either the consequences of their life decisions, or the fact that they're terrible, even manipulative people. Granted, their flaws made it a bit difficult to root for their relationship, but seeing them process these same flaws in bouts of introspection is entertaining.

That's why the last act is a bit of a disappointment, replacing this self analysis and character development with cheap drama and the tropiest of romance tropes. It's a decision that overly complicates matters and betrays the promise of a flawed, but otherwise interesting film.

The very first thing that I noticed while watching the latest Ricky Lee - Joel Lamangan collaboration Hindi Tayo Pwede is how old fashioned it feels. The dramatic narration reeks of 80's Filipino Cinema, the gender roles of the characters feel dated, and the film's theme song, Nonoy Zuniga's Never Ever Say Goodbye literally comes from the eighties. The film is a relic of a time that has long past, but given Lamangan's penchant for playing to his (older, boomer-ier) audience, this may be a deliberate choice. And for younger audiences, perhaps the starring hunks (and a butt or two) are more than adequate, old fashioned tone be damned.

Hindi Tayo Pwede would have made a great comedy. The problem is, it's a serious romantic drama about a Gabriel, a ghost (Tony Labrusca) who gets jealous over the fact his never-will-be wife is falling in love with her bestie. He doesn't exactly haunt people in the way we are used to, he just sulks and stands there, occasionally looking like a man who recently bathed in several gallons of Pond's whitening cream (the VFX team is kind of inconsistent in this regard.)

The film's dogged stubbornness to connect moving on with letting go of a ghost removes the agency of Gabby, (Lovi Poe), a character who, if she has even just a couple of functioning neurons, should know that people can't get married to ghosts. Why does she wait for Gabriel to give her permission to become single and ready to mingle? The film hinges on a premise that doesn't hold up to common sense. Honestly, she should've called an exorcist from the very start. Or since they're stuck in the eighties, maybe the Ghostbusters could lend a hand.

That's not all. The film overall feels crudely executed. For example, two vehicular accidents are shot the exact same way, which is perhaps the funniest thing in the entire film. The VFX, as previously stated, is inconsistent. It's not as sloppy as Lamangan's other recent works, and it looks like he's trying this time, but everything still comes up a little too short. This is a film that, in the words of Phoemela Baranda's character, probably should've gone "back to the drawing board."

February/March Movie Digest: Tootsies and the Fake, Hell Girl, Ip Man 4

Tootsies and the Fake is based on the two-season TV series Diary of Tootsies, which chronicles the struggles of four friends, all members of the LGBT community. You do not need to have watched the TV show to appreciate the movie, but it helps. Both the TV series and the movie are loud, noisy and silly, but behind all the slapstick is something interesting.

The proceedings are silly enough, but they ramp up to complete wackiness later on: thanks to some sweaty shenanigans, A-list actress Catriona (Araya Hargate) is knocked out of commission, right before an important commercial shoot. To make up for their role in the mishap, the tootsies decide to search for a lookalike who can fill in the role. The manage to find Nam (also Araya Hargate), whose personality is the complete opposite of her doppleganger. Even more shenanigans ensue.

The main plot's tone and direction wouldn't feel out of place in something like the MMFF, and the film's noisiness reminded me of Ivan Payawal's early work, in films such as The Comeback. The tone may prove grating to some audiences, but like the TV show, the film stealthily imparts a couple of lessons on the issues that the LGBT community face in Thai society.

It's the B-plot of Tootsies and the Fake that proves to be the movie's best part: Gus (Paopetch Charoensook) is having a rough patch in his relationship with boyfriend Win (Sawasdiwat Na Ayutthaya). Gus doesn't want kids, but Win has adopted an orphaned niece as his own, and it's creating tension between the two. Meanwhile, Gus' ex Top (Kritsanapoom Pibunsonggram) shows up and complications ensue.

The relationship is treated without judgement and with none of the stereotypes characteristic of other, similar works. Like the TV show, it's a mainstream vehicle to help teach lessons about family life, parental pressures and prejudice in the context of the LGBT community, and for that, if one isn't turned off by the slapstick, Tootsies and the Fake is at least a decent watch.

Based on the four season anime series of the same name, Hell Girl (Jigoku Shoujo) closely follows the formulaic structure of the anime it is based on: various people, wronged in some way or another, use a supernatural website to exact their revenge. If they put the name of the person they have a grudge against on that site, that person will automatically be sent to hell, no questions asked. But there's a catch: when the grudge holder dies, then he or she is sent to hell as well. As one of the characters states, "a deep grudge creates two graves."

The movie and series both raise questions about the nature of revenge, in that it's usually never worth it to exact that revenge - an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But director/screenwriter Koji Shiraishi muddles that a bit by making the targets of revenge absolutely despicable people. It's harder to be the better person when there is fear, anger, and emotional proximity to bad circumstances. To the viewer, the feeling of catharsis one gets from seeing these bad people getting their comeuppance comes with a price. Someone bad may have gotten their dues, but someone who is otherwise decent and good is also damned to hell for that "justice" to happen.

And in that sense, Hell Girl (both the anime and series) has always been a tool for criticizing society in general: for it is society that creates these monsters. It is society that condones their heinous acts. The most horrifying thing about Hell Girl isn't the supernatural bringer of death and damnation, it's people - and in a world where ghosts and spirits exist, people may be the worst creature of them all.

Ip Man 4 begins in the grandmaster's twilight years, only a short while before his death from cancer. Because of his son's rebellious behavior, Ip Man (Donnie Yen) decides to take up the invitation of his best student, Bruce Lee (Danny Chan) and go to America, so that he may also find a school for his son.

Like all the other Ip Man films, this fourth installment is very much a nationalistic propaganda piece that proudly toes the party line. With China stepping up their cultural promotion by, for example, making Chinese martial arts mandatory in schools, this is not a surprising development. In one scene, there is dialogue that implies that whether one is a Hong Konger, mainlander or immigrant, they are all under one China. A cartoonishly racist American (Scott Adkins) insults the spirit of Chinese Kung Fu and challenges local martial arts masters. He is just one of many cartoonishly racist Americans in a film that seems to be making a statement about immigration in the present day, also implying that there's no place quite like home (home in this case meaning China.) 

Like in the past three films, Ip Man is tasked to preserve the dignity of his country's culture once again. Strange that the American soldier uses Karate and not an American fighting art, but Ip Man 2 and 3 already had a boxer opponent, so I guess they combined the antagonists of the previous films to spice it up.

That said, there is comfort in formula, and the action scenes are well choreographed thanks to master choreographer Yuen Woo-ping. It's perhaps not the best of the Ip Man films (personal preference is the second and third films) but it's still a pretty fun watch.