Hi, RenxKyoko here ! ( waves)
Well, there’s so much stuff swirling inside my head that I don’t know how and where to start . …but, start I must… or else, hiatus, eh? … that’s how it is with me nowadays.
OK, I’ll start with Philippine movies. .
I’ve been watching Philippine movies on Netflix ( to learn the language ) .. I think I’m getting better, but I still need to watch them with English subtitles. The last one that I watched was “That Thing Called Tadhana. ” Tadhana means Fate. It’s about a girl who’s heartbroken, and meets the male lead at the airport in Italy and both are flying back to the Philippines. The story is slow, but it fits the mood. Acting is very natural, and dialogue is mundane but very humorous. The male lead’s acting is Napoleon Dynamite-ish, but I’m sure it’s intentional. It makes their bonding and kinship funnier. All I can say is WOW ! Loved it !
I highly recommend this to lovers of romantic comedies. It’s such a refreshing change from cringe-worthy over-acting , unrealistic ( with really stupid plotlines ) Korean romcoms. So, if you’re a Filipino lover of Kdramas, please note that you have gems in your own backyard. <—– This is a social commentary.
The other movie that I watched was BuyBust … this is about big time drug dealing gone wrong. It’s extremely gritty, and the mood and atmosphere don’t feel Asian at all… for some reason. It feels like I’m watching a confrontation between cops and Latino gangsters somewhere in New York or east LA. ( forgive me for being politically incorrect and for stereotyping, but the actors do all look like Latinos, both the drug dealers and PDEA ( Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) agents.
Back to BuyBust ….. I watched the movie with my parents. They say it’s a bit Hollywoodish, because nothing of this sort will ever happen in the Philippines. Bad men, when trapped, just surrender like innocent sheep, and never fight back. This movie ,however, looks like an apocalyptic massacre. There’s a free-for-all fight between the cops and drug dealers’ sympathizers. I mean , the whole squatters’ area’s residents are the drug dealer’s army. Wtf ! It’s unrealistic, and implausible in the Philipppines. Overall, though, the acting is good. Highly recommended. Also… ahem… *cough*… all my Filipino friends say I resemble Anne Curtis, the female lead in BuyBust. They’ve sworn by this this since long ago, and it’s only in this movie that I’ve finally taken a good look at her. Hmmm…. Yeah, I can see a resemblance. He he… Oh, wait, I’m being politically incorrect again, haha. In the Philippines, people don’t call them slums or squatters areas anymore. They are now called ” depressed areas” and the residents are not called squatters, but “illegal settlers”. Illegal settlers, hmmm…. I don’t know if that makes their situation better.
Anyway, if you have Netflix, ( I assume everybody has Netflix, right ? ) , I highly recommend these two movies.
Alright, this is all for now. Bye bye, see you later. Muaaah !