ASTIG (GB Sampedro)

-

Photo from: oneasianworld.com

ASTIG is live wire energetic from the get-go. Literally meaning "tough" in colloquial Filipino, ASTIG the film soars with slamming urban score from Jesse Lucas and original songs by Edgardo Rustia, to complement the fast-paced, dangerous, and desperate lives that intersect within a few miles radius of a well-known notorious area in the city of Manila. 

The acting is impressive, especially an unrelenting and unrepentant Dennis Trillo as a document forger on Recto Avenue who also moonlights as a con man with several women. Sid Lucero is also notable as a patriarch by default struggling to keep his crumbling family together, as well as Edgar Allan Guzman, a man with such ideals forced into a Catch 22 situation. Arnold Reyes is not without merit, although the story involving his character could have been omitted; it was unnecessary bordering on obscene.

You get the director's POV trying to highlight the murky and unforgiving streets of Manila and its effects on hapless victims. GB Sampedro has a grasp of his subject matter, and though ASTIG may not be as gritty as Brillante Mendoza's TIRADOR, or as satirical as Jeffrey Jeturian's KUBRADOR, it knows what it wants- to be a straight-to-the-point urban drama. My only regret is that the third vignette (the film has four) could have been written better; otherwise scrap it altogether. 

Glaiza De Castro shines as the rose among the thorns. Though the film has various female supporting cast, De Castro owned the film with her turn as a naive colegiala who falls victim to Dennis Trillo's ploy; ironically, De Castro was the one who emasculated Trillo's character which eventually caused his downfall. She has such expressive eyes you cannot simply ignore.

It was nice seeing Chanda Romero onscreen again. Malou Crisologo and Keanna Reeves also render strong support, and a bandwagon of mostly Kapamilya stars turn up like mushrooms, such as Bianca Gonzales, Vhong Navarro and even Ai Ai De Las Alas. 

I liked that they shot within the CM Recto area, Arranque, and Quezon Blvd. But for a urban film tackling survival, how can they not feature a character selling pirated DVD?

Dennis Trillo's vignette is the film's best part.

RATING: 3/5 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitalizing on ta
Read more

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn'
Read more

A study of spaces in Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's 'Happy Old Year'

-
Image
Space is both an overarching theme and visual signifier in Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's Happy Old Year . Its protagonist, Jean (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) comes home from a lengthy stay abroad, determined to declutter her life, and along with it, old things that belong to a past she is desperately running away from. As we watch Jean plan the redesign of their family house into a more spacious and minimalist residential office, we also witness the transformation of the persons that inhabit the house, as well as their connection to other people, most of them absent from the frame. Jean the destroyer Millennials have often been criticized for being rash with their actions, and for having their way, no matter what. The filmmaker, a millennial himself, understands this stigma, and subliminally argues that millennials are the way they are because of a multitude of factors: rising cost of living, the evolution of discourse as a result of technology (such as film streaming se
Read more