March 16, 2025
Angelo Heresano (JC Santos) lived in the slums of the city with his wife Sunshine (Jasmine Curtis-Smith) and their daughter Cherry (Darlyn Izabelle Salang). Angelo's main occupation was boxing, but he made extra cash by working menial tasks at the fish market. Angelo needed to make more money because Cherry was very sickly in constant need to medical attention. On top of that, Angelo also decided to enrol Cherry in a private school.
Angelo earned the monicker "El Maso" for his way of hammering his opponent down with his signature series of hard-hitting fast punches. He had already been sent abroad once, several years ago, to fight in Mexico, but he, unfortunately, did not win. However, his handler Dondon (Raffy Tejada) got him into shady deals with a certain Boss Chang (Emmanuel dela Cruz), where he would earn more cash only if he agreed to throw his matches on purpose.
There is something about boxing that makes it a very popular subject for dramatic films. Philippine world champion Manny Pacquiao had inspired two such films, "Pacquiao the Movie" (Joel Lamangan, 2006) and "Kid Kulafu" (Paul Soriano, 2015). In fact, the feature film debut of director Christian Paolo Lat was also a boxing movie -- "Ginhawa" (2022) about a poor aspiring boxer from the province Anton who tries his luck in the big city.
"Journeyman" was practically a continuation of "Ginhawa". Angelo also moved to Manila to try his luck as a boxer. Unfortunately, poverty forced him to swallow his pride to keep losing his matches in order to make a little more money. That irony came to a head when he knew that his idol Gerry Penalosa would be watching him fight the Japanese champion Kato. Will he still fold for the sure P50K payoff, or will he show off what he was really capable to do?
JC Santos gave his 100% in his gritty, sweaty portrayal of Angelo as failed boxer and family man, in a realistically painful physical and emotional performance. His siomai-eating scene at the end (reminiscent of Jaclyn Jose's iconic fishball scene in "Ma Rosa") was absolutely heart-crushing. Santos' Angelo also bared his soul when his long-suffering wife Sunshine broke down and expressed her "what-ifs" at the hospital, and in those conversations with Nay Rosario (Ruby Ruiz), his adopted mother at the fishport.
Co-writer and director Christian Paolo Lat obviously had passion for this story about the sad reality of fixed fights in the underbelly of the boxing world. He co-directed this film with his brother and cinematographer Dominic Lat, who was somehow able to make the polluted waterway beside the fishport look good. The way the brothers executed the boxing scenes delivered the expected excitement and human drama. The cameos of two-time world champion Gerry Penalosa also gave the film an additional punch. 8/10
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