March 11, 2025
Director: Jaq
Writer: E.R. Castro, Jaq Raveza Carlos
Issa (Arah Alonzo) and her friend Osang (Aria Bench) live-sell various items on their online channel. When they deliver the items to the buyers at their convenient, and then offer them more happy "services" on the side to make more money. Osang's ex-boyfriend Jugs (Marc Capilador) wants her to stop live selling and get serious with him. Meanwhile, Issa had a surprise reunion with Alvin (Andrew Gan), her crush since high school, who was now a cop.
This is VMX's latest in a series of films where the protagonists use their occupations as fronts for prostitution in order to get ahead. I did feel that this was done tongue-in-cheek, so the premise of offering extra-service with the delivery can be funny, even if it was exploitative in principle. Another comic factor here is Aria Bench, who knew she was not as pretty of face than Arah Alonzo, so she did well to push her sense of humor up front. 4/10
Director: Joey Cruz Manalang
Writer: Joey Cruz Manalang
Newlyweds Kara (Alessandra Cruz) and Max (Benz Sangalang) had their honeymoon in Tokyo, Japan. One rainy day while walking in the streets, they met Kara's ex-boyfriend Marvin (Mark Nino), who now goes by the name of Kenji, who worked as a "man for hire." Kenji spent the whole day taking the couple around. He even spent the night at their honeymoon suite. The next day, Kenji's girlfriend Tanya (Arneth Watanabe) suddenly showed up.
The foursome story was not exactly new, but director Manalang added more extras to make things more interesting. He took us around Tokyo using frenetic camera work. Newbies Nino and Watanabe are likely Tokyo-based Filipinos, so a lot of their lines were in Japanese, which was dope. Each of the four main actors had scenes where someone was interviewing them about love and relationships, and these were well-written. 4/10
Director: Lawrence Fajardo
Writer: Jim Flores
When she moved to Manila, Alex Bernabe (Robb Guinto) worked as a "walker" (euphemism for prostitute). One day, she received a call from Sgt. Manjares (Mark Dionisio) that her old friend Mara Conrado (Stephanie Raz) had been found murdered. She dropped everything and went to Angeles, Pampanga where Mara worked as a walker. Mara's tabloid journalist boyfriend Joel Desiderio (Vince Rillon) helped her investigate the crime.
This was a crime drama story set in the underbelly of Angeles City. Joel told Alex that he needs her help to get necessary evidence in order to identify the last customer of Mara. Then when it reached the reveal, it was totally illogical. In hindsight, why was Joel asking her to do this? Why were the perpetrators nervous about what she was doing? Anyhow, good thing this film had Naths Everett's offbeat turn as Mara's pimp Zandra to pull it up a bit. 3/10.
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