October 1, 2021
Fil-Italian exchange student Giuseppe (Marco Gallo) needed to finish his final project about Filipino mythology in order to graduate. A strange gay man with garish makeup and huge headdress named Gudong (Chad Kinis) convinced Giuseppe to go with him to his home in Siquijor where he lived with his siblings Gimo (McMuah), Ging-ging (Lassy Marquez) and Giniper (Aubrey Caraan), whom he claimed were all mythical creatures.
This film is prolific writer-director Darryl Yap's 10th film project overall, and his 8th for this year 2021 alone. It opened with a scene set in the year 2067 where an old woman (Gina Pareno) was sitting in a pyramidal hut with a round window in the middle of a grove of trees. It then transitioned back in time to the year 2019 to the same hut owned by a famous babaylan or fortune teller named Guinta (Teresa Loyzaga) about to tell an optimistic Giniper her future.
Each creature was introduced. Sigbin was a foul-smelling hairy hybrid of goat and dog, with big ears, whiplike long tail and hooves facing backwards. Magindara is a fresh-water creature with long mossy hair and a fishy tail, who lured victims with her dizzying song. Tiyanak is a shapeshifting baby who victimized people fooled by its innocent crying. Manananggal can separate her upper torso from her legs, the sprout wings to fly off and seek her victim.
Marco Gallo's Giuseppe had quite a challenging dramatic character arc to ride and he nailed it in most part, showing much improvement from his brief role in Yap's "Gluta" earlier this year. Having three gay comedians as supporting characters meant some gay-baiting humor, all at the expense of Gallo's Italian good looks. There was some awkwardness in the climactic confrontation scene when he went a bit over-the-top with the shouting.
Audrey Caraan also takes on her biggest role to date here as the titular confused manananggal, Giniper. The arc of her character was more predictable -- a poor abandoned girl who felt obligated to help her adoptive brothers with their criminal schemes out of gratitude. This time with Giuseppe, love and conscience got in the way. Caraan still needs some more acting experience to rid herself of tics that do not come across naturally onscreen.
Aside from Siquijor's beautiful waterfalls and beaches, some of its famous dishes were featured like Basoy, Tinuluang Manok and Saang (spider conch) sa Alat, all richly prepared with anti-aswang ginger and garlic. Despite the potentially tourism-damaging story of swindlers preying on clueless tourists, this film promotes the culture of this mystical province which worked hard to overcome its creepy reputation to become a tourist paradise. 6/10.
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