March/April Digest: Walang KaParis, Baby Boy Baby Girl, Working Boys 2

 

The act of empathy is a crucial part of loving and being loved, in that our closeness to another person is enhanced by trying to see and understand the world in that other person's shoes. That act of perception is a big part of fiction in general. In her body of work, Sigrid Bernardo has often explored this concept in different ways: in Untrue (2019), all the film's narrators are unreliable, each point of view unveiling small pieces of a bigger picture; in Mr. and Mrs. Cruz (2018), two people empathize and heal over their shared heartbreak; in the charming yet flawed Kita Kita (2017) the act of (not) seeing is expressed in both literal and figurative ways. Her latest film, Walang Kaparis, draws many parallels to Kita Kita, improving upon that formula in many respects.

Jojo (Empoy Marquez) works as a mime and painter in the streets of Paris. He's haunted by the face of a woman in one of his pictures - a face he can't quite remember. One day, he comes across Marie (Alessandra De Rossi), who looks exactly like the woman in the picture. Marie takes to Jojo like they've been together for a long time, while to Jojo, this is the first time they've met. The film is generous with its clues, and even partially astute or genre savvy viewers will be able to figure it out - but that's beside the point. As Jojo (and by extension, the audience) learns more about the nature of his relationship with Marie, he regains the perspective that he lacks, eventually seeing circumstances from Marie's point of view.

Most of the enjoyment of Walang Kaparis stems from the unlikely chemistry from both leads - the same chemistry that contributed to Kita Kita's runaway success with audiences. If you are not excited at the prospect of hearing Empoy and Alex shoot the shit for almost two hours, this film will do nothing for you. But if what I described is totally your jam, then you're in for a treat: this is both a 'greatest hits' collection and an evolution of themes that Bernardo has been exploring throughout her filmmaking career.

Of Jason Paul Laxamana's pandemic body of work, some of his films explore the transactional nature of some human relationships, to varying results. His previous Expensive Candy (2022) took a look at sex work and the parasocial relationships that arise from them. In Baby Boy, Baby Girl, the film explores the practice of sugar dating, where wealthier clients give expensive gifts to their partners in exchange for companionship.

Josie (Kylie Versoza) has tried to make it with a startup business but things just isn't clicking. She then turns to her ex boyfriend Seb (Marco Gumabao) who has made a living being a sugar baby to a number of people. He's joined by a band of other sugar babies, who flaunt the products of their (mostly) transactional relationships: the more fancy the gift, the better. As Josie learns the ropes and gets used to relationships without all the extraneous stuff, she finds she's pretty good at it.

The thing is, something is lost without all that "extraneous stuff" in the way. According to the film, relationships built on sugar dating either don't last - in which case the sugar parent moves on to another - or they evolve into something more, in which case the transactional nature of the relationship (at least, the financial part) disappears. There's an interesting scene in the latter half of the film where Josie and Seb hook up and every step of their lovemaking is treated as a transaction, though this is just an excuse for the fact that they are both still pretty much into each other and they'd eventually have hooked up anyway.

The somewhat risque ("adult?") romantic comedy with respect to contemporary local cinema is something kind of different, but altogether the same: it's the same old formula but with most of the cutesy fluff removed. I'm not ashamed to say I don't mind more of these being made.

The original Working Boys (1985) with TVJ is a Mel Brooks-ian, loosely constructed mishmash of comedic vignettes, where the three titular everymen do everyman stuff, fix everything from alarm clocks to demonic possession and get into comedic hijinks. I get the feeling after rewatching the film (it's free on Youtube via the official Viva channel) that this is a film where you are meant to see your favorite comedic actors do funny things. This is not a serious dramatic movie about the perils of the gig economy, and it would be silly to think otherwise. Therefore, all I ever expected from Working Boys 2 was for the film to have charming leads and funny jokes. News flash: this new film does not have either of those things.

Instead of being savvy and self-employed, the five titular characters of Working Boys 2: Choose Your Papa are unemployed bums unsuccessfully trying to be gainfully employed. One of them loses his chance because he has breath so bad his mere existence should be classified as an act of bioterrorism. Another one has the mental processing power of a paramecium, holding up the rest of a crowded elevator because his brain crashed.

I'd tell you their names if I could, but to be honest that's one of the biggest problems with the film: none of the main characters are worth remembering in the first place. Yes, some of the actors like Mikoy Morales are great in other films, but there's nothing substantial for them to work with here. I'd also say none of them work well with comedy, or at least this type of comedy, and the one legit "comedian" here is Bayani Agbayani, whose schtick is equally painfully unfunny: his character Tso Papi's main thing is that his main mission in life is to breed his wife Tsa Bebeth (Debs Garcia) - by the end of the film they succeed, and celebrate her pregnancy by having sex again. Haha. 

The five boys eventually become all-around fixers on their own with a 21st century twist: they launch the Choose Your Papa app, where they offer their services on there for a price. This quickly goes out of hand as they are wrongfully accused by a vengeful party of using the service to do lewd things, though thankfully this is resolved... and that's it. Boring, unfunny, and forgettable, it's better to just stick with the original, which is way better and you don't have to spend a peso to watch it.

D' Aswang Slayerz | A Review

 

In my almost 18 years of writing for this blog, I've come across a number of real stinkers, films that are shoddily made, produced without thought and told with stories that simply don't work. I was expecting the same when I saw D' Aswang Slayerz, the new film from actor/director Ricky Rivero. But I'm going to say this right now before y'all expect me to lie down like a corpse somewhere and clown on this film: I don't think D' Aswang Slayerz is that bad. I can't say it's a good film, but believe me, I've seen way worse. 

Let's take a step back. As far as I know, D' Aswang Slayerz is the first theatrical project of Amartha Entertainment Production, a company that makes Youtube web series featuring its stable of talents. The main guy heading up the company (and the "protagonist" of this film) is one Mel Martinez, whom Filipino film experts will note is the brother of Diamond Star Maricel Soriano. We'll talk about him later.

The film is, perhaps, a means of stepping up their game - a risky and ballsy decision. However, the local film industry is ruthless and pretty costly: I'm sure you've heard of well done, quality productions fizzling out in cinemas before the weekend - well, as of this writing (I started writing this a week ago lol), only a single cinema is still showing the film in Metro Manila - SM North Edsa -  and on a single screening, too. The film seems to have a little more success in the provinces, where its brand of humor probably clicks better with audiences there, but I was lucky to have seen the film before it all but disappears.

D' Aswang Slayerz (yes, the Z is intentional) is about Paps Mir (Martinez), an unemployed man who lives in a rented apartment with his adoptive daughter Eve (Athalia Badere). Paps Mir tries to establish several businesses of his own to little success, and the two are in danger of being evicted. However, the two of them are greeted by a mysterious figure who turns out to be La Niña (Magdalena Fox,) a (kinda) long lost relative who is part of an aswang-slaying clan back in the province - and since Paps and Eve are legit blood related to that family, they are inheritors of the clan's famed aswang-slaying powers. The two move to an aswang-infested baranggay in the province where they soon get distracted in various affairs: while Eve takes the vampire threat seriously, Paps decides to become the family chef for the baranggay chairman Eudora (Sharmaine Arnaiz), who coincidentally turns out to be the local queen of the aswangs, Helga.

Shenanigans ensue, and by shenanigans I mean,,, not a lot. Paps Mir, Eve and their neighbor Logan (GJ Dorado) get magical weapons, "train" in various aswang killing techniques and lounge around while the aswangs they are supposedly hunting kill and kidnap a lot of people. It's a small step away from becoming completely nonsensical, but the movie manages to stumble into a conflict between Paps, who is smitten by hunky tricycle driver Troy (Lester Tolentino), and Eve, who knows that Troy is part of the aswang pack. It's a really silly turn of events, but to be fair the movie doesn't take itself too seriously either. This is the low budget equivalent of an MMFF movie, and I would not be surprised if Martinez and his colleagues tried to submit this last year to the festival. Full of insult comedy, references to Filipino cinema and camp, in concept the film should work. But unfortunately, due to limitations in budget and technical expertise, the end product is mediocre at best, and achingly dull at worst.

As mediocre as the film is, there are a few bright spots: the film's MVP is undoubtedly Magdalena Fox. Fox, an internet personality whose origins stem from Tiktok, brings a weird kind of charm to her performance and won this cynical movie watcher over. Unfortunately, the film's main protagonist is in my opinion its weakest link: Mel Martinez' exaggerated facial contortions and bulging eyes are like if William Hung and Graves' Disease had an angry, surly baby. It would have been great for comedy but there's a edgy meanness to Martinez' character and humor that it doesn't really work.

It mostly means well, though because it leans a lot into its self-awareness, it made it hard to find the whole affair ironically entertaining. Add that to the fact that the film is as technically polished as a preschooler's drawing - missing minutes of audio in the most crucial and climactic scene. Though it starts pretty interestingly, D' Aswang Slayerz has a languid, boring middle part and a third act that is plain unfinished.

In times past I probably would have been harsher, but time does mellow a man, and to be fair the five people who watched it with me seemed to be entertained for at least the film's first part, so it's not a total loss. This is not the worst local film of 2023. It's not even close. But don't expect a masterpiece either.