Wednesday Night Southeast Asia Film: Philippines

February 4, 6:30pm - 9:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Center for Korean Studies 1881 East-West Road

On the Job
Philippines (2013, 121 min)
Director: Erik Matti
Writers: Erik Matti, Michiko Yamamoto
Cast: Joel Torre, Gerald Anderson, Piolo Pascual, Joey Marquez

Action director Erik Matti is clearly an entertainer. On the Job is thoroughly enjoyable, replete with scenes and sequences that are precisely conjured to thrill and excite. Underneath the numerous pleasures it generously serves however is an unflinching observation, aptly pessimistic and bleak, of a society that has become oblivious of the decay that has invaded the lowest of its lows and the highest of its highs.

On the Job tells the stories of several players in an elaborate scheme that enunciates the very rotten core of a government that seems to thrive in crime and intrigue. Francis Coronel (Piolo Pascual) an honest investigator who unknowingly marries into a political family with shady connections, ends up with a murder case file conveniently snatched from Joaquin Acosta (Joey Marquez), a low-ranking cop who has been slaving on the case and other similar cases for years, with the help of his influential father-in-law. The perpetrators of the murder, Tatang (Joel Torre) and his overeager trainee Daniel (Gerald Anderson), are prisoners whisked away from their cells every time a target needs to be disposed of. Between Coronel and Tatang are various other personalities, loved ones and protectors, all of whom enlarge the risks and stakes.

The screenplay is written by Matti with Michiko Yamamoto, who penned Maryo J. de los Reyes’ Magnifico (2003) and Aureaus Solito’s Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, 2005), all of which are films whose underlying observations on society’s ills are masked in their endearing depictions of humanity’s goodness.

-Francis Cruz, oggsmoggs.blogspot


Ticket Information
Free and open to the public

Event Sponsor
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 956-2688, cseas@hawaii.edu, http://cseashawaii.org

Share by email