Seven Days is the worst local film of 2024

 (... so far)

In December of last year, actor-director Mike Magat held a press conference for his new film Seven Days. Magat's IMDB filmography is spotty, but as far as I can tell Magat started out in several action movies as a goon or extra, including 1990's Robin Padilla actioners like Anak ni Baby Ama and Bad Boy. In that press conference, Magat talked about wanting to work with other actors, which in itself sounds like a cool thing.

After seeing this film, I would like to say to all those actors... run. RUN. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE GET SOME HELP

Seven Days is the heartwarming tale of a man who stalks a beauty queen, intrudes into her house and kidnaps her, then tells her that if she doesn't fall in love with him in seven days, he will let her go. Guess what fucking happens.

Seven Days is, in terms of technical ability, one of the worst made films I've seen this year. This film has credits: there's an editor, a sound designer, an assistant director, the usual stuff. But unlike other movies, the names listed in those credits function differently. They are less credits and more like vague probabilities. Like, did Someguy Whatshisface in the credits edit Seven Days? I GUESS. More like some dude fiddled around in Windows Movie Maker until it looked like something resembling a film. Certain shots inexplicably turn up before the scenes that they are supposed to appear. Did the sound guy do the sound in Seven Days? Kinda. There are sounds in this film, but to imply that they were edited in any way would simply be a lie. Sounds in Seven Days exist in a spectrum, ranging in between "commentary during a golf match" and "2 foot long hot pokers being inserted into my ear canal." The sound guy's personal philosophy seems to be laissez-faire. Or maybe he is not a sound engineer, but merely the suggestion of one.

The film begins in medias res, on the fourth of the seven days, with Kate (Catherine Yogi) running for her life from her captor, Marco (Mike Magat). He creeps up on her like a serial killer and catches her. The funny thing about this is, there's tense music while he's chasing her that CUTS OUT whenever it cuts to Kate, as if they rendered his chase scene first with the music and inserted her reaction shots in between.

Kate wakes up chained to the wall of a bamboo house. Marco walks up to her but he's shot in a very weird way, as if it's a surprise as to who it really is. WE JUST SAW WHO IT WAS FIVE MINUTES AGO. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOI-

hilariously, the film repeatedly cuts to his pants and shoes lol

The film then cuts to the time when Marco kidnapped Kate, and there is no question that he's a creeper. There's a part during this scene that's shot like it's from the point of view of inside the car, and it's very silly because the car's headlights are on and it's going like 1 kph following this girl and she doesn't even notice. She gets incapacitated with chloroform, he puts her in his van and races off to a remote island near Taal Volcano. The soundtrack post kidnapping is really inappropriate, but as we will see inappropriateness is par for the course for this movie. Set to a sun at around 8am (the kidnapping takes place at night, so that's some pretty powerful chloroform), the scene is set to music that doesn't sound like some poor lady's been taken against her will, but instead sounds like if Marco rescued Kate from a rebel stronghold in Mogadishu with Josh Hartnett in tow.  

Back to the present. now we see who Marco is, like that matters now. Kate is understandably distressed about the whole thing, because, as we all know, SHE HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED. Marco plays it off and offers the girl coffee and bread, but she doesn't reciprocate his "kindness", because, and I can't stress this enough, SHE HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED. During this scene, the "editor" (as I've said, this is a very gracious description of what he actually does in this film) cuts to and from shots of Marco and Kate. Not different shots, just the same ones. Did they run out of footage?

We're not even fifteen minutes into this film, and God has already abandoned us. From now on, we will only stray further from His light.

The film goes from day to day, documenting Marco's advances towards Kate. On day 2, he takes her out to pee and there are shots of her legs as she squats on the grass. Mercifully, we don't actually see any pee actually come out, which is a positive for this film, but it's not much of a consolation. Oh, and I forgot, she does this WHILE SHE IS HANDCUFFED TO MARCO. Kate hasn't changed clothes, but Marco assures her that he will buy her seven dresses, seven bras and seven panties. We will soon see that the number of clothes Marco will ultimately buy will vary. I don't know exactly why this inconsistency exists, though it does paint Marco as a serial liar, or at least, someone who exaggerates the truth.

Day 3. Marco leaves to buy groceries. He leaves Kate with a charger for her cellphone. Not so that she can call for help (there's no signal in the island), but because, in his words. "para makapagselfie ka."

AO:DFJBGAE:LGBAEOIGDBADLKGJBE:ODILHNGE"SDLGHNS:ODGN

Sorry, my mind broke for a second there. While shopping for groceries, Marco finds a wanted poster of himself. It is printed via inkjet that seems to be running out of colored ink or is printing on draft mode. I get it, printer ink is expensive. Where is the wanted poster posted? On a wall somewhere? On a telephone pole? On the side of a building? Nope, the poster (more like a piece of bond paper) is nailed to a tree. Not just any tree, a tree in THE MIDDLE OF A SMALL FOREST. Marco tears up the paper.

Day 4. Marco is jogging somewhere nearby to the tune of light, jaunty music while Kate tries to escape from the "island". Like in a previous scene, the nincompoops who made this film rendered the jogging scene with the audio before editing it with Kate's escape. What results is Marco jogging, then the music abruptly cutting while Kate runs in silence. Amazing. Even high school students edit better than this.

The police talk about Marco. They don't actually try to catch him or hold a manhunt or anything, they just kinda call each other on the phone while looking at the poster they printed. You know, the one printed by a dying inkjet printer on bond paper. It might even be the same poster prop that was torn earlier and they shot these scenes out of sequence. While they are talking, the film cuts to a 2 second shot of a bonfire. The bonfire has nothing to do with the current scene, but it does show up in a latter scene. It was probably left there by mistake by the "editor."

The bonfire actually comes from the night of Day 4, where Marco holds a romantic dinner for Kate. Kate understandably still wants to escape but she plays along for now in the hopes that he'll slip up. During the dinner date, Marco explains in detail how he stalked her for months, found out she's a beauty queen and captured her to make her fall in love with him. "Sorry for kidnapping you," he says, as if that makes everything better. She runs away but he catches her (this is, if I recall correctly, the scene from the beginning of the film).

Day 5. Kate has a dream that she's dating Marco in some sort of garden. At this time my stomach sinks. Oh no. OH NO. OH NO.

Day 6. Nothing much happens. Marco sleeps near Kate and tells her good night.

Day 7. Marco tells Kate that he knew that from day 1 that Kate wouldn't like him SO WHY THE FUCK DID YOU HOLD HER CAPTIVE FOR SEVEN DAYS YOU FUCKING - 

these were my notes during that period. The chaotic scribbles to the lower right are a graphical sign of me losing my fucking mind.

The couple look at Taal in the distance and it seems to be erupting (!) I don't think these people had much of a budget so this was one hell of a lucky shot. It goes incredibly hard and is the best thing I like about this "film".

The euphoria from that shot soon vanishes when it is confirmed that yes, Kate has somehow fallen in love with Marco. I know Stockholm Syndrome is a thing and any movies have been made about that particular condition, but the film has so far given me no signs that these two are gonna fall in love. They have ZERO chemistry. It's made even more worse by the fact that they get married two weeks later, and what's even more hilarious, during what I assume is their wedding day, Marco STILL has handcuffs on his person! Does he plan on cuffing her during the honeymoon!? Who knows!

I suppose that the handcuffs are Magat's symbol for a relationship or something, but cuffing someone connotes the lack of agency or free will. To cuff is to imprison, to deprive someone of liberty. Is he applying that metaphor to marriage as well? What the fuck is going on in this man's brain? Have parasitic worms eaten Mike Magat's frontal lobe or something?

Two months later, Marco goes all the way to Manila to buy Kate some flowers, as if there isn't a florist anywhere near Taal. The Manileño florist identifies Marco immediately because he has a picture of Marco on his phone for some reason, and he calls the cops. Right in front of Marco. Who hears everything this bald dumbass is telling the cops. Genius storytelling right here.

The cops chase Marco in one of the slowest bike chases in cinema. The informant calls a cop, who calls another cop. As the second cop talks to the first cop, the phone's ringtone keeps on ringing, even if the second cop has already answered the goddamn phone.

Eventually a random car hits Marco's bike. He is killed on the spot. Kate mourns him; his tombstone is inexplicably located not in a cemetery but in some random forest (probably the same forest where the police nailed a bond paper to a tree). This cuts to a scene seven months later, where Kate is STILL mourning Marco. Couldn't they have combined the two scenes together? Why expect something rational from this trainwreck? During Kate's mourning scene, I kid you not, the film cuts around a dozen times to Kate's crying face and Marco's tombstone. They ran out of footage. AGAIN.

There's an epilogue to this film that I will not spoil (it's in the trailer, but it's out of context so it's easy to miss) that ultimately doesn't matter. This is a baffling film, a pure failure of filmmaking craft that demands 275 pesos from its audience. Did I say audience, I meant victims. Or maybe the correct word is patsies. Who is more foolish, the fool who makes the film or the fool who watches it?

What really put me in for a loop is the ridiculousness of this film's plot, but there is, weirdly, historical precedence to this. When I was a kid, I wondered why one of my uncles on my father's side looked different from my other uncles. Eventually, one of my other relatives answered the question: hundreds of years ago, apparently one of my ancestors decided to kidnap a Dutch woman (probably part of a crew of traders) and basically did a "Seven Days" on her. I cannot corroborate whether that's true or not but needless to say I was horrified, and I have since heard similar tales from other people.

Surely, you might say, this doesn't happen today, but a culture that doesn't respect a woman's agency and one that somehow justifies kidnapping to sate the desires of a man is a way of thinking that's still ingrained in many men today. Take for example Magat's co-star in his earliest films: Robin Padilla. A few weeks ago Padilla, the 1990's symbol for toxic machismo, made statements regarding the consent of women when that woman's partner has the urge to have sex. "Wala ka sa mood, paano ako?" he said to the horror of many. But that's the thing: a lot of people think that way, people like Padilla and people like Magat. Some make regressive statements that way because they do not respect the personhood of women; they do not recognize that they should be free to make decisions for themselves, that any kindness given by their captors is not kindness but a means to get what they want. Some make regressive (and technically inept) movies because of the same reasons.

These are the kinds of people who should be shot in front of Taal Volcano. I mean it in the other sense. 

Sinag Maynila 2024: Reviews of all Full Length Films

Jewel (Rebecca Chuaunsu) is an elderly Filipino-Chinese woman suffering from dementia. Her lawyer son Kyle (Boo Gabunada) hires a caretaker, Teresa (Elora Españo), to take care of her, and they form a sort of tentative bond, albeit a bond that isn't completely altruistic. As Jewel recounts her childhood and family situation growing up in a strictly conservative Filipino-Chinese family, she remembers how her brother Magnus (Richard Mata) tricked her out of her share of the family's inheritance and decides to sue him.

Her Locket is a family drama that in the larger scale of things, doesn't really do anything new, but it's a comfortable and generally enjoyable movie to watch. It follows in the slew of films about Filipino-Chinese communities popularized by Joel Lamangan's Mano Po, and it does that depiction well. It also touches into generational divides and how rigidity and traditional thinking can rip families apart.

However, something feels off about the whole enterprise. Perhaps it's that the film's final act (and the decision that resolves it) doesn't quite align with everything that leads up to it. I get the pivotal character decision near the end of the film, as it is probably a sign of someone who knows they only need to be proven right, as there is no utility to 'winning' at this point in one's life. Perhaps it's the numerous court scenes, which mostly revolve around seemingly random percentages touted as forensic analysis, and often devolve into hammy, overly theatrical sequences that suspend my disbelief. Or maybe it's Teresa's character arc, which doesn't feel fully realized, showing only a fraction of her interiority, if at all. Or maybe it doesn't delve too much into Kyle's own story and how it could mirror his mother's. But my favorite scene of Her Locket, and perhaps its most effective, is a wordless shot near the end, and Rebecca Chuaunsu and Elora Españo communicate everything that's needed at that moment. It almost made everything click into place.

Andy (Perry Dizon) is a historian. As with many an academic, he is in the process of finishing a book that might never get finished. The years (and an addiction to alcohol) have taken a toll on him and his memory is slipping. After collapsing during a lecture, he goes to live with his translator cousin Christine (Dolly De Leon) in order to recuperate. But visions of a mysterious woman named Salome (Ram Botero) haunt his life, both in waking moments and in dreams.

At a certain level, Gutierrez Mangansakan II's Salome shares themes and elements with his 2018 film Masla A Papanok: the erasure of culture by colonialist ambitions, that cultural erasure mirrored in its central character's deteriorating memory, and a woman whose mythohistorical existence is shaped by an amalgamation of multiple cultural elements (Christianity, indigenous religious beliefs, etc), a sort of protean historiography. There is also the looming threat of an apocalyptic event, but while in his earlier film this apocalypse refers to the death of colonized cultures, the events depicted in Salome refers to something equally resonant and immediate.

This is not to say that Salome is a simple reiteration of that earlier film; in particular, the film points at the looming extinction of another set of people: cultural workers and historians like Andy and Christine, and how the reception to the film proves its point.

That's why I consider the most pivotal scene in the film to be one where Christine and Andy look at the looming horizon and talk about their work. They lament their respective career quagmires and consider the importance (or unimportance) of cultural workers like them. In my view, what they do is of utmost importance: they provide context to text; that is, they help us understand the meanings of art, historical records and photographs. The film notes that historical records (in particular: photographs) have long been used "for the purpose of empire," To 'decolonize' culture we need understanding, and to do that we have to look back and interrogate the intent and history behind the many things left by our former colonizers. Indeed, Christine's current project involves Antonio Pigafetta's Primer Viaje en Torno del Globo, which is one of the first books to describe Filipinos from a western perspective. Without the benefit of Christine's translation and the context provided by historians, how do we make sense of their accounts other than what is presented to us ex facie? Without them, it would be like looking only at one side of the moon, one face eternally facing earth, the other side perpetually locked in darkness.

Salome, whose original name was Dayafan until the colonizers 'westernized' her memory and history, can be seen as a sort of parallel to Andy and Christine: she is a prophet, and prophets are conduits, interpreting and translating the language of the divine in order for the common people to understand divine will. She prophesizes a coming calamity and relates the outbreak of a disease in her community that decimated her people. Like the prophets of our indigenous past, historians see cycles and patterns that ostensibly help us prevent them from reoccurring. Alas, as Salome takes place in the last few months and weeks before COVID, these prophecies sometimes reach deaf ears.

There is also one more thing in Salome that metatextually refers to its own utility in this process of decolonization: as it is itself a work of art, there are people whose task is to glean meaning from it. The late David Bordwell once wrote that "the text is inert until a reader of listener... does something to and with it... Meanings are not found but made." Aside from filmmakers, the cultural workers that do that are film historians and critics, but film critics are as much in danger of extinction as art historians, partly because we as a society are fostering a film watching culture that eliminates nuance, that sees its critics trapped in western formalist discourse, that reduces an opinion to a single number or phrase, and is populated by fundamentally incurious, willfully ignorant people who refuse to engage with a work unless everything is spoonfed to them. That is made more than evident upon reading some of the reactions to this film. To those people, no meaning is created, and nothing will ever be created. To liberate film, to decolonize it as part of decolonizing culture, is to disabuse ourselves of this emerging insipidity and to continue to create meaning, to understand, and to use that understanding to be free.

Arvin (Tony Labrusca) wants to work, and it looks like he just landed a job in a resort in Palawan. He's been at it for a while, watching self-help videos in an attempt to give himself an edge. But Arvin's job hunt comes at the worst time, because it happens just at the cusp of a certain worldwide pandemic...

Trapped in his home with ever more dwindling prospects for work, Arvin begins to lose his mind. He is then 'visited' by Ace (also Tony Labrusca) who is Arvin's total opposite, or rather, his deep-seated Id, acting out in ways Arvin could only imagine doing himself.

What You Did captures the isolation and loneliness a pandemic can bring, and how, for some people, that same pandemic took away their ability to be useful to society. Having to rely on handouts from relatives can feel humiliating. The first part of the film feels like a fugue state, where Arvin's (and by extension the audience's) sense of time and place blur.

The isolation of the pandemic made a lot of us turn inward (in introspection) and bring out parts of our psyche that social graces had previously hidden. Through various forms of social media and outlets on the internet, the pandemic revealed something dark about a lot of people - podcasts, for example, went on the rise during the pandemic period, partly because of our desire to be entertained, and partly because of our desire to connect to someone else. It comes as no coincidence that the first thing Ace puts out on the internet (in Arvin's name) is an insane conspiracy theory, which is just a manifestation of Arvin's growing paranoia and anxiety - and it also has to be said that people flock to him regardless, like moths attracted to a flame. 

What You Did is weakest as it transitions to its latter half, where it tries to provide a justification for Ace's existence and awkwardly stumbles towards a conclusion. There are some tense moments but the film could have benefited from building up more of it. At this point the pandemic years seem so far away, even though we still had vestiges of it in early 2023. It's going to be interesting seeing 'pandemic' cinema as filmmakers and audiences look at it in retrospect.

(as an aside, getting like 100k views is gonna get you jack shit even if you monetize it lol)

The first time we see Macky (L.A. Santos, In His Mother's Eyes) and Molly (Kira Balinger) they're a couple newly in love. Five years pass since their first meeting, and they're living a relatively humdrum existence: Macky is a restaurant manager and Molly, like the rest of her family, is subservient to richer relatives, working as an assistant to her cousin. In order to gain financial freedom, Molly decides to immigrate to Canada with Macky, re-enter college there and eventually find a way to get permanent residency and try to move the rest of her family into the country.

Benedict Mique's Maple Leaf Dreams resonated a bit with me, because it's the sort of experience my loved ones have experienced: for one, my maternal grandmother spent decades in Ontario until her retirement. Canada has a reputation of being one of the most immigrant-friendly nations in the world, taking in hundreds of thousands of people in the country every year. 

The film is pretty rough in its construction: at one point, it uses social media as a narrative device to depict its characters' feelings, as if everyone in the world is an influencer of some kind. They really don't need to be gallivanting around the city like it's one of those "travelogue" Star Cinema films, and the whole thing feels forced. 

What Maple Leaf Dreams does successfully articulate, however, is the immigrant experience of many Filipinos seeking a better life abroad. It's not Canada-specific, the film could have taken place in Azerbaijan and not a lot would change, but it doesn't need to be. In particular, Maple Leaf Dreams shows how lonely a life abroad can be: years upon years away from family and loved ones, earning money but not for one's own enjoyment, eternally (and in Molly's case, ironically) at the service of others. The film shows one of the greatest assets one can have while living in a foreign land: not (just) the monetary compensation, not (just) the affordable healthcare, but the presence of community, the "third space" that forms when people from another culture settle in a wholly different country.

A seemingly superfluous scene, where Molly and Macky leave a steaming hot (!) Christmas dinner for a party with fellow Filipino-Canadians, ends up being the film's centerpiece. It turns into a documentary style sequence of stories from actual Filipino-Canadians relating their experiences abroad. Mini spoiler alert: it's not an easy life. And with rising global anti-immigrant sentiment, worsening economies all around the world to the point where even in Canada, immigrants are struggling to make ends meet, it's not getting any easier for people who are considering taking the risk. But, as the film tries to say in all its clumsy ways, it's a little bit easier to dream when you have someone dreaming alongside you.

Alvin Yapan's Talahib begins with a lengthy quotation from retired justice Isagani Cruz. The quote refers to an en banc decision Cruz made in 1989 over the implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law, which was supposed to award land from landowners to farmers. Said landowners protested, saying that the President had no authority to do that, or that they were owed some kind of compensation. Cruz dismissed these petitions and upheld the law, giving the land to the farmers. In his closing statement, Cruz says that "meantime, we struggle as best we can in freeing the farmer from the iron shackles that have unconscionably, and for so long, fettered his soul to the soil."

If we are to assume that case forms the basis of the film, the opposite seems to have happened: the land itself is possessed by a malevolent spirit, the ghost of a man who was buried there, seeking vengeance upon all that oppressed him. A woman (Sue Prado) and her would-be rapist are killed in the beginning of the film. This leads the local police, led by Bong (Joem Bascon) to investigate. When they run into a group of young people led by Joyce (Gillian Vicencio) at the crime scene, things get a little more complicated.

Talahib is rich conceptually; Yapan is no stranger to allegory, and the land's seeming malevolence against anyone who walks in its territory is anger distilled from years of unfair treatment. At first watch I was confused: the victims of the Talahib killer call themselves farmers, but they do not do farming; the land is untilled, the grass grows tall and is not reaped. A dilapidated model house stands alone amongst the grass, and there are talks to sell the land for purposes other than farming. These 'farmers' are rich and send their children abroad. Then I realized, their testimony of the ghost is false. In my reading of the film, the 'killer' is not a 'killer', or at least he wasn't one until after he was killed; the victims of the 'killer' are tenants and landowners who call themselves "farmers," but benefit from land that is not theirs.

That all said, the film is not very well made. From the first frame, I felt a feeling of impatience to the film in its editing and sequencing of events, as if it did not want to bother establishing a scene, filling in narrative blanks, or introducing us to its characters. There's one time where the characters anxiously search for a character named Vernie, and I was like "who the heck is Vernie?" It's Kate Alejandrino's character, but I only knew that after looking at the credits. In another instance, a tense chase inside an abandoned house abruptly cuts to a shot of two policemen waiting outside. The tense chase scene ends off screen and is rarely alluded to again. It's like massive chunks of the film are missing. 

Talahib is a disappointing mess. While it does build some dread in some of its scenes, it is not tense; as a police procedural (for at least 80% of the film, it functions like one) it fails. 

What makes a film good to me? Is it the cinematography, the editing? Is it its intrinsic entertainment value? I'm not really sure I can answer that right now, but I think one of the factors is how much fun it is, for me and for the filmmakers who made it. Banjo is objectively not a very good film, but I had a blast watching it, and the dedication and passion of the filmmakers is more than evident, despite working with what I assume is 50 pesos and a prayer.

The film begins with Banjo (Bryan Wong, who also directed the film) in dire straits. He was supposed to infiltrate a drug cartel led by crime boss Franko, but his cover is blown and he's captured by Franko's underling Zaldy (Rhodium Sagario). Before he is captured, Banjo goes to a fiesta where he sneaks up on a guy stealthily to kill him, ignoring the fact that in the reverse shot there are like five people behind him and he would be spotted immediately.

Zaldy forces Banjo to kill a hooded figure, who turns out to be his brother Marko (AJ Arobo). Banjo then proceeds to kill everyone in that room for making him do that, and sits in the corner after the deed a bloody mess. His pants are also ripped at the crotch area, not intentionally (I think!!!!) but that's beside the point. Let me tell you this right now: Banjo has a couple of decent action scenes at least in terms of choreography. The camerawork and editing may need a little polishing but there's something dynamic in these scenes that we don't usually see in other action films.

The superior officer in charge of Banjo's operation (Mon Confiado) tells Banjo to continue trying to get to Franko - he's likely to be chased by Franko's goons from now on and as long as he doesn't die, maybe he can get Franko to emerge from hiding and expose him. This is also the last time we see Mon Confiado in the film, because I guess that's all they have in the budget for his talent fee. In the meantime, however, he has to get the hell out of Zaldy's base, so he calls his ally Yuri (Missy Acodile) to rescue him. Franko's goons quickly find out where he is, however, and raid the hideout.

Banjo's sent to a butcher who's going to use his body to store contraband (replacing his organs with drugs) while Yuri and a bunch of other women are set to be sold off as sex slaves to a wealthy congressman. Franko's underling Hector (the late Bordie Carillo) does his sales pitch selling weapons, girls and even parts for nuclear weapons (!!!) Meanwhile, Banjo, Yuri and her new lady friends are in a room. before Banjo is dragged out of the room to be dissected, he defiantly kicks one of the gunmen on his way out! Yuri ends up choking the guy guarding her then she... lies beside the girl next to her??? I have several questions. Why are you storing drugs in dead people? Isn't lugging a dead person around Mindanao gonna look suspicious? Where did those other women come from? Why did Banjo kick that guy while he was being dragged out of the room???? What happened to the guy Yuri choked into unconsciousness???? What dimension does this take place in??????? 

Banjo manages to free himself and rescue the hostages and go to a secluded location in Rogongon, Iligan City that used to be a tourist spot. If you're familiar with Bryan Wong's previous short films (he has a LOT on his FB page), then you know he likes to shoot in resorts in Mindanao, and that's also the case here - he shoots in at least two resorts in Banjo, or maybe it's the same resort and they just shot it in different parts. Here's where I found the one thing I liked the most about Banjo: it has extensive lore for its huge cast of characters. Banjo meets up with Rakman (Malizord Waway Estillore, and damn that's a tokusatsu-ass name if I ever saw one) a former rival assassin who Banjo made an ally through the power of friendship. Yuri also recounts how she met Banjo - after some family issues, she becomes a party girl, apparently doing drugs and dancing the night away in a club that has a total of four people in it, tops. Maybe it was a soft opening. After the Rogongon sequence, we don't see these two people again.

The Rogongon action sequence is probably the film's centerpiece, as it embodies a lot of things, in all its ultra low budget glory. It understands the flow of an action scene (preparation, action proper, then resolution) but doesn't quite understand how it fits into filmmaking (what looks like an establishing shot doesn't match the location where the action actually takes place, and doesn't quite communicate the locations and positions of its characters in an obvious chase scene). In one glorious moment, Banjo hides under a bridge and snipes Franko's henchmen one by one. One last henchman falls, but there's no gunshot - THE POOR MAN JUST SLIPPED ON THE MUDDY GROUND. The take keeps rolling as the man struggles to get up, while a firework effect made to simulate gunfire simmers nearby. He decides not to get up and instead squirms on the ground towards Banjo's position. I have never felt so much second hand embarrassment for another person in a while. Banjo eventually puts the poor man out of his misery. My eyes are full of tears, but not from crying.

Banjo escapes from Rogongon and goes into hiding, eventually gaining crucial intel left behind by his brother Marko, who happens to have a very pregnant wife (MORE LORE!!!). His new boss, General Laguesma (Jerome Laguesma) is in Los Angeles for some reason, tracking a guy named Dr. Sanders. Why a General would personally be doing a covert operation instead of one of his agents baffles the mind, but whatever.

This review is getting way too long (and I want to keep some spoilers in case you see the film, please release the film somewhere) so let's just say Banjo always gets his man. I'm telling you though, there's a ton of things I haven't even talked about - I sometimes take notes on films I watch and it's usually 2 pages tops. For this one, I took 10 back to back pages of notes about a truckload of characters with backstories and relationships to Banjo. 

It's like a AliExpress John Wick in here. Among the other characters, of note is Banjo's daughter (!!!!) who talks with the famed assassin in cutesy language that only proves the point that no matter how badass you are, you're always gonna act cringe to your kids. This is not a film that was made without thought (okay, yeah it was, filmmaking wise), this story had an outline. This film has lore. Bryan Wong, this absolute madman probably had character sheets. Character sheets!!! He probably even had a relationship chart, this movie has enough material for five sequels. And from the films two (yes, two!!!) mid credit sequences, I would not be surprised.

Banjo proudly continues the tradition of cheap but supremely enjoyable action schlock made with earnestness from truly independent, regional filmmakers. It's the most fun I've had in a cinema all month. I would honestly watch Banjo 2: Franko's Revenge, Banjo 3: Big Wolf Keeps Slipping On Mud, and Banjo 4: His Pants Ripped Again At the Crotch if they ever had the budget to do so.