Yikes
Saw part of the new series Asian Treasures with Angel Locsin and Robin Padilla. I do not understand their hair. Angel looks like she’s been doused in Pagoda Cold Wave lotion and Robin has hair borrowed from Jackie Chan in the early 80s. There’s a slow-motion shot every two minutes, and when Angel takes off her helmet and tosses her hair it looks like the director is auditioning for a shampoo commercial. Jaime Fabregas turns up in a Jedi costume from Star Wars. It didn’t look like a Jedi costume, it was an exact copy. Ripping off is clearly not an issue to the producers—the recent Captain Barbell contained elements from the Superman movie and the TV series Smallville. Encantadia borrowed liberally, to put it kindly, from popular fantasy movies. In the ads for Asian Treasures Robin Padilla is dressed as Indiana Jones and Angel Locsin as Lara Croft. Apparently originality is not highly valued on network TV, but the idea that a show is “just like Hollywood product” is. We don’t hide possible copyright infringement, we’re proud of it! “Kaya rin natin yan!” The Elvis Presley/ Michael Jackson of the Philippines schtick. We may not know what we are, but we know what we wannabe.
This is irrelevant, of course. The final arbiters of right and wrong are ratings and profits.
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January 16th, 2007 at 03:27
Is there hope for Philippine movies? Our producers hire a couple of geeks armed with a pirated copy of 3D Studio Max for CG animation and they say “It’s just like Lord of the Rings!” I think I heard that one a couple of years back when the Mulawin movie came out. The thing is, we never really learned how to make good films. When Kurosawa was creating his masterpieces, we were still mimicking those old Hollywood musicals. There was some glimmer of hope in the 70’s and 80’s when Brocka and company arrived. But he died too early and what we’re left with is Carlo J. Caparas and company. Right now, other Asian countries are so far ahead of us in terms of movie making that they can even compete favorably with Hollywood flicks. All we have to show for our efforts every year is Shake, Rattle and Roll. I think it’s in its 8th incarnation now. The film makers should not blame the DVD piracy issue for its woes. It is probably losing its market share in that industry too. At 60 bucks, Captain Barbell is still a rip-off!