A little background: the original Mang Kanor was an old man (allegedly a cop) who recorded a video of himself having sex with a significantly younger (and busty) woman. (Again, allegedly) they had sex as a favor to finance the woman's education. This happened multiple times.
This movie fictionalization tries to add a little background to the old man. It's nothing particularly deep - a younger, uglier Kanor, whose face looks like someone stabbed it multiple times with a pentel pen, struggles with his self esteem and his interactions with women. He doesn't have the emotional maturity (or the stamina) to handle it.
Now that he's gotten older and has a little bit more money to throw around, various women form a transactional relationship with the dude for their own financial needs. There's a lot of depth to be plumbed here. For example the women willingly get into this relationship for their own (admittedly nebulous) sakes, knowing that horny men are horny and gaming the system in that regard (while some also do this to satisfy their own sexual needs.) Kanor, for his part, is still in some ways as emotionally immature as he was in the beginning of the film, the film framing him as someone who, in his own messed up way, genuinely wants a connection with someone and sees these transactional relationships as his way of achieving that. There's also a subtle level of social pressure pushing him to seek these relationships even if it is to the detriment of everyone involved. As we hear with his macho banter with other people and the workers under his employ, getting with a beautiful woman (sometimes multiple, sometimes at the same time, and not always to everyone's benefit) is a desirable social end goal.
Our titular protagonist isn't necessarily shamed for his sexual deeds; he is actually arrested for a different crime (perhaps shedding light on why legislation like R.A. 9995 became necessary) and accepts accountability for his actions, sexual or otherwise by apologizing to the women he hurt, whether directly or not. For a movie that's been horny on main for the past hour and a half, that's actually a surprising conclusion.
Unfortunately the movie is more interested in staging boring sex scenes so all the interesting stuff feels secondary to them. If you like Rez Cortez' rotund body gyrating on a woman like a creaky run down jalopy then have at it, boys (and girls??)
p.s. I find it hilarious/sad (?) that the filmmakers behind the film got in trouble after screening the film without an MTRCB permit. Those dudes are getting their sticky fingers everywhere
Establishing character moments are meant to reveal a little bit of what a character is about, at times helping set the tone for the rest of the film. Some clever filmmakers use this as misdirection in order to set up something funky later on, but that's usually the exception to the rule. The establishing character moment for the protagonist of Vivamax's Lagaslas is of him furiously masturbating to his imagination. Props to the film for not holding any pretentions to what it is, and what it likely will be used for: material for horny men to jack off to - men not unlike the film's protagonist - despite the ubiquity and access of, you know, normal porn. To those men who feel seen, hooray for representation, I guess.
Edmar (VR Velosa) is said horny protagonist, who spends his time either jacking off, peeping at his neighbor Karisma (Manang Medina) or being nagged at by his single mother Loleng (Rubi Rubi). When he gets caught by Karisma, instead of screaming for the authorities or her adoptive parent/sexual partner Vicencio (Julio Diaz, also ew), Edmar and Karisma start a secret sexual relationship.
The more interesting plot happens in the film's sidelines: Loleng is a part of a cooperative that sells their goods at the local market. But they've been scammed by unscrupulous individuals and need to pay a massive sum of money or they'll all be evicted. In its most interesting moments, Lagaslas takes us on a tour of this small ecosystem of vendors, selling, haggling and fucking their way and living hand-to-mouth (and for some of them, dick to mouth) in an existence that is rigged against them.
I'd be on board with the shenanigans that take place if not for the fact that both protagonists are ridiculously dumb. I know horror film protagonists are stereotyped as making braindead character decisions, but holy hell these two take the cake. They both have loud sex, which is itself not that bad but they do it a couple rooms away from a sleeping Vicencio, as if they're begging to be caught. There's a case to be made here that the both of them love the thrill of almost being caught (a stupid idea, but to be fair a lot of kinda sexy ideas are stupid) especially in one scene that's almost ripped from the late Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron, but sexy. Edmar also isn't above returning to Karisma's place for round two, even though they've already been almost caught before, nor is he above having sex with literally anyone else that isn't related to him, including his mother's manicurist.
There's also Karisma's twisted relationship with her adoptive parent Vicencio. The dude groomed the young girl as soon as her parents were out of the picture (there's a non-zero chance that he had a hand in the accident that claimed their lives, though the film doesn't imply either way) and she's developed Stockholm syndrome towards the guy - she knows she's being exploited, but she makes it clear that she accepts this arrangement. Edmar comments on the situation with the most cursed line of dialogue I've ever heard in one of these movies - "[If I were your adoptive parent], I'd [molest you too]" which, in all my years of writing this blog, I simply have no response. This film is a gold mine of mirth. Films don't necessarily have to reflect your morality, yes, but nothing's stopping me from reacting to the absurdity of it.
Lagaslas' ending works fine on paper, but lacks the narrative framework that makes it make sense in practice. It's ultimately about a woman who games the system to ostensibly gain the "freedom" that she desires, even if it's obvious that she'll be exploited anew.
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