The location of Paradise
Takashi Miike, Far East Filmfest – Udine, 2006, originally uploaded by 160507.
The LUA tells me that Takashi Miike’s The Guys From Paradise is set in Manila. According to midnighteye.com: “Allegedly based on a number of true cases, The Guys From Paradise is a prison story set in the Phillipines against a background of corruption, drug trafficking and paedophilia. . .Though somewhat overlong, The Guys From Paradise paints a lurid portrait of The Phillipines as a country awash with all manner of vice, symbolising a side of Asia which the civilised Japanese have lost touch with. Even though they hold a position of privilege, their suits and ties won’t protect them from being swallowed up by this more savage society. . .” (Note spelling of Philippines. Could’ve been worse, they could’ve spelled it ‘Philistines’.)
In short, the yakuza in the movie find the Philippines scary and weird. Haven’t seen the movie, I don’t know if it was shot here.
To recap our list of foreign productions in which the Philippines plays the Philippines and not Vietnam (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born on the 4th of July, etc), Thailand (Brokedown Palace), or Indonesia (The Year of Living Dangerously):
1. Days Of Being Wild by Wong Kar-Wai, with scenes in Tutuban and Villa Escudero
2. Supercock, a B-movie about cockfighting, not a porno
3. The Guys From Paradise, maybe
Now I’m going to watch Takashi Miike’s The Happiness of the Katakuris with its enticing tagline: “The hills are alive with the sound of screaming!” Prefer bloodcurdling shrieks to Climb Every Mountain any day.
P.S. This one’s a real scream: Richard Quest Thought Process Flowchart on 23/6.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
April 28th, 2008 at 22:13
in all of the wong movies i’ve seen, there’s always a mention of the philippines…i find this really interesting.
April 28th, 2008 at 22:41
Interesting..Weren’t the Japs partly responsible for that considering they single-handedly levelled Manila (and the rest of the country) half a century ago?
April 28th, 2008 at 23:03
There’s a movie that used to be played regularly in StarChinese, one that involved Abu Sayyaf. The production was from Hong Kong, I think. The title escapes me but it’s about the plight of Chinese kidnap-for-ransom victims in Mindanao and, for some weird reason, it’s not totally antagonistic towards the kidnappers.
April 29th, 2008 at 07:40
I have wanted to see The Happiness of the Katakuris for a long while now. It was remade into a pretty good Korean black comedy called The Quiet Family. The remake was great: it featured the lead actor from Old Boy (and shared the same director, I think) and the guy who plays the short gangster boss Sang-du in the Korean TV series All In.
Possibly The Happiness of the Katakuris would be better because nobody can do meaningless weirdness like the Japanese.
Let us know how the movie fares in your estimation.
Cheers.
April 29th, 2008 at 09:33
Civilised Japanese vs the savage society? Wow. Why do these words make me as nervous as a stray dog in the streets of Baguio?
And that picture! Wow again. The picture of a civilised Japanese about to be swallowed by the savage society. Poor, poor, civilised Japanese.
April 30th, 2008 at 00:02
For maximum Miike weirdness, those interested should also check out Rikki-Oh (The Story of Rikki).
May 3rd, 2008 at 13:47
Some foreigners (and, possibly, some natives) who know how to spell the name of our country would naturally assume that Filipino is spelled as Philippino.
May 13th, 2008 at 13:34
You should catch this excellent action-packed anime Black Lagoon….though it is set in the fictional Thai seaport of Roanapur, there is a couple of episodes (near the end of the 1st season) that are set in the Philippines.
Speaking of anime, one of Miike-san’s upcoming projects is a live-action adaptation of a 70’s-era Japanese anime about time-traveling teens and the misadventures with their fantastically-designed “time machine” mecha