(SPOT.ph) The year is 1951. Quirino is president. In the slums of pre-Smokey Mountain Tondo, gang wars rage. Men kill each other over territorial disputes, usapang lasing, and illegally seized shipments of Brazilian corned beef. Asiong Salonga (Jeorge “E.R” Ejercito, current Governor of Laguna), legendary gang leader, lords it over the shadowy underworld of post-war Manila. He drinks and smokes and shoots and curses, then comes home to his sainted wife Fidela (Carla Abellana, in a purely ornamental role) and their growing brood. With his wingtip shoes and pomaded hair, Asiong Salonga casts himself as a glamorous Robin Hood-like figure who believes in spreading the stolen wealth, thus securing his popularity among the people of his neighborhood. (The thing is, it seems organized crime in Tondo isn’t very organized at all. Petty gangsters, corrupt officials, a very blithe culture of impunity—has anything changed at all?)
Now my plan is to watch the lowest grossing films at this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival just because. I certainly don’t want to throw my money at Vic and Ai-Ai’s chins—sorry, that was unnecessarily catty, even for me—but they have already made close to 70 million bucks as of Day 2. Also it always seems that the most interesting movies (that is, the non-franchise) at the MMFF come in at the bottom of the list, like last year’s MVP-funded glossy period biopic Rosario and Dolphy’s Catholic Church condemned comedy Father Jejemon. This year, the underdog has my support, and so I wholeheartedly gave my one hundred seventy pesos to the hot mess that is The Untold Story of Asiong Salonga.
It really is too bad that this film fell apart because of director-producer disagreements. Directed by renowned filmmaker Tikoy Aguiluz and produced by Gov. Ejercito, the movie suffers from the highly publicized tug-of-war that happened right before the festival opened. (Read about it here) Creative differences and power struggles make bad publicity, which apparently does not translate into box office success. Unfortunately.
There are flashes of brilliance buried underneath the pile clichés of the Pinoy action-melodrama in this version of Asiong, ironically titled The Untold Story because there are already three earlier versions of the story (one from 1961 which propelled a young Joseph Estrada to fame, a 1977 one with Rudy Fernandez, and a 1990 one also with the Governor in the title role.) The latest reincarnation—shot in black and white, production designed to the hilt, and featuring an original song by Ely Buendia—could have been really cool, only it isn’t.
The offspring of a nasty custody battle, the movie—as it is showing in theatres right now, the producer’s cut, not the director’s cut—is a bit flaccid and entirely too long at almost two hours. Despite the great supporting cast featuring some of the best actors in Philippine cinema, including Ronnie Lazaro, Phillip Salvador, Archie Adamos, John Regala, Baron Geisler, Ketchup Eusebio, and Yul Servo, among others, I could not suspend my disbelief and accept the somewhat puffy and pasty Governor as an edgy, wily, twenty-seven year old gangster from Tondo. I wanted to close my eyes every time he came out on screen in a white sando—ugh—but that would mean missing more than half the movie. Also I couldn’t help but shudder when he kisses poor Carla Abellana’s pristine neck, but she’s a trooper, staying lovely and martyr-like even in the most challenging circumstances—like ugly crying from the Governor, who is not likely to win the best actor award at the festival.
So it is raining bullets in Manila Kingpin: The Untold Story of Asiong Salonga. The year is 2011. Inevitably, poor old Asiong shoots himself in the foot.
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Here’s something cool from the film’s soundtrack:
