Araw ng Kagitinggan

We were so used to former PGMA’s “Holiday Economics” that yesterday’s holiday at the middle of the work-week caught us off-guard.

Since it was a Wednesday, I believe people simply opted to stay in the city and do their Christmas shopping.  Boy oh boy, were the malls packed!

After doing some Christmas shopping of my own, I decided to watch films with courage and bravery as themes. What better way to commemorate Gat Andres Bonifacio, right?

First, I downloaded a 2011 remake of an alien film classic – “The Thing”.  I was able to watch an earlier version of “The Thing” which starred Kurt Russell.  In fairness, the latest remake was almost as good as the Kurt Russell version.

The story is about an alien spacecraft that crashed in the Arctic wasteland, hundred of thousands of years ago.  An expedition in 1984 was able to uncover the ship and its lone passenger trapped in a block of ice.  The lone passenger, trapped in this frigid coffin of ice is what is called “The Thing”.   The scientists on the expedition take a tissue sample of the frozen passenger and inadvertently re-animates the spider-looking creature.  Lo and behold, the creature is apparently not as friendly as they expected it to be and it starts feeding on the expedition team.  To complicate things, “The Thing” can copy the human-figure of its victim . It can also use the faculties of speech and reason to lure more victims to their death.  There is only one courageous  survivor of the expedition, a female scientist. This ass-kicking geek blows up the alien creature by shoving a military-grade explosive in “The Thing’s” mouth.  Talk about an ice-breaker eh?

Next movie I pirated off the net which displayed bravery is a Filipino flick by Regal Films.  The movie is entitled “Aswang” (loosely, this is Filipino version of any known blood-sucking creature).  In this movie, it is the Aswang who displayed extra-ordinary bravery by defying what her nature dictates.  This memorable Aswang chooses to preserve life and does not treat humans as cattle. Of course she gets into trouble with her entire clan who treats her as an outcast.  The movie is set in a fictional baranggay in Pampangga called “Barrio Tumana”.   Yep, I shit you not, it’s actually called Tumana. 

Since this is not an Indi Movie, the movie is complete with twisting sub-plots. There is murder and unrelenting chase-scenes. There is a trio of  bad-ass hitmen hunting down the children. There is a story about redemption regarding one of the hitmen.  There are also dream-sequences of wanton passion.   A  typical Regal Film formula : a little bit of everything for everyone. How can this Aswang movie go wrong when you have a demigod like Lovi Poe as the central character with fangs.