January 30, 2021
Former sexy star Ara Mina's father was a famous director of classic bold Filipino films, a genre that had since dwindled in popularity with the rise of amateur scandal porn on the internet. Before he passed away, he told Ara that he was bequeathing to her a major percentage of his wealth in order for her to achieve his dream to make the ultimate modern skin flick masterpiece and launch a new Filipino sex goddess in the process.
So Ara gathered up three other fellow sexy stars, Maui Taylor, Rosanna Roces and Alma Moreno, who made the screen sizzle during their respective decades. These ladies were supposed to help her with the practical aspect of her plan to achieve her father's deathbed wish -- to train a potential new sexy star all the kinky tricks of the trade they had learned and perfected during their heyday as film sirens.
Writer-director Darryl Yap went the sex comedy route again this time, following the footsteps of his first project with Viva Films "#Jowable" (2019), which became a sleeper box office hit and later, made it to Netflix. With a title as brazenly naughty as "Pornstar," Yap went all out to mine the local soft-porn genre for every aspect that he could make fun of. The viral online promotion of this film actually followed the same success formula it tackled in its story.
Yap's major casting coup of gathering sexy queens of the past, Alma, Osang, Maui and Ara, was big news. Later, there would be a lot of buzz created online on social media with some provocative photographs to whet audience interest. Earlier this January, the titillating trailer came out and immediately caught fire, quickly racking up 6M views in its first 2 days of release. The initial MTRCB rating of X certainly helped raise prurient audience expectations.
Upon watching the final film though, that trailer already revealed too much of its story and its best gags, even that singular boldest money shot. From the trailer alone, you can already see that the quality of the production design was rather low-brow pastiche. Ara's ranch was probably supposed to be the local Playboy Mansion with several decor as visual double-entredres, but the ambiance was more kitschy than glamorous.
It was also apparent from the trailer that the "acting" of the actresses were over-the-top comic spoofs of themselves more than anything else -- Alma and her lousy English and political career, Rosanna and her weight gain and her sharp tongue, Maui and her diva attitude. While funny for a while, they became corny as the shticks kept recurring. Oddly, nothing much was brought up about Ara, nor did she do anything too wild or raunchy compared to the others.
The young aspiring actresses, Rose Van Ginkel and Ana Jalandoni, were treated as brainless bikini bimbos as they obeyed their mentors' crazy instructions to the letter. The main young star being built up, Twinkle (AJ Raval), did not look like she really wanted to be there at all, with that nervous, uncomfortable look constantly on her face. The arc of her story was rushed and undeveloped, with too many blanks left unfilled.
To bring the millennials up to speed, the four sexy movie queens of the past were each introduced with cards listing their distinguished filmography, along with a short history of the local sexy film industry. Several typical bold film tropes, like the wet t-shirt, the white camisole, the horseback riding, the licking of ice, the lusty moaning, were all there. The version shown on Vivamax is rated R-16. Curious what those supposed X-rated scenes were cut out, since they never really go near hardcore porn territory, as suggested in the title.
However, the funniest moments of the film were actually those seemingly ad-libbed banter among the four main stars, more than the scripted jokes. Rosanna Roces ribbing Alma Moreno about her real-life partners were true off-the-cuff LOL moments. 2/10
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