mano po 6, 1d

12/28/09 at 9:36 PM
My baby cousin who is not so baby anymore was to celebrate her birthday after christmas… and she was asking me for a gift… I told her, I did take her to see “Avatar” already… she argued that was Christmas gift, it’s her birthday… “Mano Po 6” was up, and it is easier for me to find someone to take me to bed than to see a movie… and so we went…

I have openly, and with much embarrassment and defensively, admitted that I am a Sharon Cuneta fan... rooted from all those Sharon movies in the eighties with which my mom would take me, regardless of standing room only or the power shortage—I remember it was “Kahit Kounting Pagtingin”, the cinema was so packed, then the power went out and we have to wait for about an hour or so, in the dark, almost suffocating…

Yes, name a Sharon Cuneta film and I bet, I’d seen it…

Mano Po 6: A Mother's Love, chronicles the life of a half Chinese, half Filipino woman, who was thought of as jinx by the pure and wealthy Chinese family her husband belongs to… disowning her and in the process taking her 3 younger children away from her… she tried to fight back, but in this film, wealth is everything and it does not apologize for it… true enough, Melinda, Sharon’s character, realize this and so, as it is implied on the film, though we actually don’t see it, worked hard until she becomes as wealthy and therefore as powerful as her in-laws… but despite this, she still was alien to her children mainly because they grew up not knowing her and brain washed that she was a bad woman…

Funny note, as we were in the cab on our way to SM Marikina… me and my cousin were joking that we would see Mano Po 6 in 3D, this is because we saw “Avatar” only in 2D and everybody is saying we should see it in 3D… I planned to, but because of the Manila Film Fest, all the cinema in the Metro only shows film from the festival… as it turns out, yes… we need to see Mano Po 6 in 3D or at least 2D… the film was 1 dimensional… I thought, the film was like a cardboard cutout, interestingly…

ZsaZsa Padilla, playing the sister-in-law, was great in acting as the feisty Chinese woman, but she was just that… a feisty Chinese woman all throughout… Sharon as Melinda Uy, was busy… and that was it… she was busy… Heart Evangelista as the prodigal daughter is cold… and that she remained cold… Ciara Sotto was a wall flower, and that she was a wall flower indeed… there was no character development… they stayed as they were from the beginning of the film to the end… all that changed was what they were wearing…

I say, Mano Po 6 is the local equivalent of “Sex and the City” or “The Devil Wears Prada”… everything were flashy, from designer’s suits and dresses… accessories and jewelry… cellphones to computer… cars and houses… and there were the bags… If I am not mistaken, Sharon carried 3 Berkin bags in the film… as I said the film does not apologized for affluence and luxury…

The film ends with Sharon finally able to win her children’s love… and they were in China where she opened an orphanage in honor of her mother... for I think we don’t have enough Chinese speaking street children in the Philippines…


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