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A Report On Cinemanila From Quentin Tarantado About Quentin Tarantino!

Published at:  Aug 09, 2007 4:33:32 AM CDT

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

I’m not sure what Cinemanila is, but Quentin Tarantado’s been sending us reports from time to time, and this one is like he’s finally realized his destiny, writing about the man from who he borrowed his name. Check it out:



This is Quentin Tarantado again.

TARANTADO, not Tarantino. In Filipino, it means "idiot" or "fool" or worse, and I'm reporting on the opening of Cinemanila 2007 last August 8. So it's apt to say that Tarantado is now reporting on Tarantino, because literally, Quentin Tarantino has been invited to Cinemanila to receive a lifetime achievement award for promoting Asian films.

I think the award is well-deserved because if it wasn't for Tarantino's love for the disreputable B-movies of Eddie Romero ("Mad Doctor of Blood Island" and he produced "Flight to Fury" starring ex-Philippine president and present jailbird Joseph Estrada and Jack Nicholson in a bit part.) or Cirio Santiago ("Caged Fury" and "Dune Warriors") and his love for Hong Kong movies ("Reservoir Dogs" reputedly was based partly on Ringo Lam's "City on Fire") then his films just wouldn't be the same. Since his name is now well-known, he's lent his name to promote an occasional Asian film like "Hero" or "Oldboy". Naturally, everyone crowded around him and since most people in this country is short, he stood out like a well-lit telephone pole that had just freshly impaled an ant hive. He was given the keys to the city by the mayor of Quezon City and he was given the lifetime achievement award (a heavy-looking gold statue of a sitting naked man, a.k.a. a "bulol") His acceptance speech was very gracious, describing Filipinos as warm and welcoming, he mentioned his first Filipino film was Eddie Romero's "Twilight People" with Pam Grier as the Panther Woman; his favorite version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. The Filipinos ate it up.

He eclipsed the two other awardees, Robert Malengreau, festival director of the Brussels International Film Festival (who also took the trouble to greet us in Filipino) and His Supreme Highness Chatrichalerm Yukol, a film director and a Prince of Thailand, to boot. Malengreau is significant because he's been promoting Asian films in Europe for years.
The other awardee, His Highness Chatrichalerm Yukol directed the opening film, "King Naresuan" which he explained is part two of a planned trilogy. In part 1, Naresuan had been kidnapped and taken to Burma, where he learns fighting. In this installment, he becomes a prince, and he leads his armies in one successful campaign after another for his king until he learns of a plan to assassinate him, so he declares Siam as independent and decides to flee back to Ayutthaya.I guess part 3 would have the prince turn into a king and would be on how he protects Siam from its enemies.

The movie is roughly two hours long. The first part, where they establish the characters, seems a bit clumsy and tentative, like a first time director's work (HSH Chatrichalerm Yukol has done 24 movies so I'm not sure why this is the case. If forced to speculate I feel maybe his heart wasn't in this, because of what I saw later.) One strand sticks out, though, the love story between Rachamanu and Lurkin (Lurkin being the female). Maybe it's the nature of their story, maybe it's the actors, but the audience was clearly sympathetic to them. They overshadowed Naresuan's love story because Naresuan is played straight, flawless and heroic, while Rachamanu is a second banana, and might suffer the usual fate of second bananas so I constantly feared for the safety of the loversI think this imbalance is a good thing because it kept our sympathies with the movie until the ending, where I can now believe HSH Chatrichalerm is a veteran director because suddenly he's dealing with action and violence with aplomb and panache.

I might have added that they tend to make the hero too perfect: a combination of Saint and Heroic Warrior, but the director has managed to give the movie a tone that he's recounting legends (actually it's history probably liberally sprinkled with dramatic license) and we have heroes who have descended from the undergoing titanic struggles. So, the worshipful tone isn't off-putting. I would recommend this movie despite the stiff acting and clumsy scenes at the start because it's firstly a glimpse at Thai history, because of Rachmanu and Lurkin's hot chemistry and because the ending is properly rollicking and spectacular.


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    Readers Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:35:34 AM CDT

    first?

    by the dum guy

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:37:36 AM CDT

    like an ass!

    by the dum guy

    Got it... yeah.. Now to read the article....

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:38:34 AM CDT

    THIRD!

    by jackson healy

  • Aug 09, 2007 6:02:02 AM CDT

    Choose you're own ending! A brilliant tactic!

    by dandelion

    Really, I love when articles don't end! At All! We can make up what is said next!

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 7:17:58 AM CDT

    "Twilight People"..

    by nolan bautista

    ..scared me when i was a little kid..especially the bat-guy..check it out if you get the chance..its a low-budget 'Dr.Moreau' type horror made in the '70's..

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 9:01:44 AM CDT

    I love the name Quentin

    by joeypogi

    I love the name Quentin Tarantado.

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 10:18:28 AM CDT

    I love the Philippines

    by bloo

    Had a great time when I visited there last year about this time, but I can say that I've never seen any filipino cinema, I may have to make up for that sometime soon, recommendations

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 10:49:43 AM CDT

    Philippino girls are F'ing HOTTTTT..

    by bishop6

    I've never dated white trash

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 1:41:55 PM CDT

    ummm great...

    by transmetropolitan

    now what the fuck is the deal with Inglorious Bastards?

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 2:03:35 PM CDT

    BRING ON THE KILL BILL SPECIAL EDITION!

    by iamnicksaicnsn

    Gotta see it the way it was meant to be seen!

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 3:36:43 PM CDT

    Are Philipinos considered Asian?

    by fa fa fooey

    They have Spanish names, hence the question. Plus I know a lot of Asians (Japanese, Korean) who seem to look down on them.

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:28:51 PM CDT

    Philipinos

    by supernatural_canary

    Indigenous Philipnios would be more accurately described as closer to Malay than Asian, although Philipinos self-describe as Asian. The indigenous culture is very much like the Malaysian culture in that they are a south-east Pacific island culture. China had a lot of early contacts with the Philippines, which is where much of the “oriental” physical features come from. My wife’s great-great grandfather was Chinese, and she is often mistaken for Chinese when we walk around Chinatown.

    The Philippines were colonized by the Portuguese and then the Spanish (which is why they have Spanish names), and the Philippines lived under Spanish rule for over 400 years.

    After years of fighting Spanish rule, the Philippines declared it’s independence in 1898. But the declaration was not recognized by Spain or the United States because Spain had ceded the Philippine colony to the United States for $20 million after Spain was defeated in the Spanish-American war.

    Despite the fact that the Philippine nation wanted to install western-style democracy (with a constitution based on the US constitution), the American powers that be at the time decided they weren’t “ready” for democracy. So we invaded them to put down a rebellion, resulting in one million people dead and wiping hundreds of villages permanently off the map. (In fact, a general famously and nonchalantly said that it might be necessary to kill half the population in order to bring “perfect justice” to the other half. Whatever the hell that means.)

    An interesting side note: Magellan, the first man to circumnavigate the globe, was killed by a small Philipinos army in 1521. One of the few times European colonial overlords got what they deserved.

    Oh, and having married one, I can attest that Philipino girls are in fact totally hot!

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:33:44 PM CDT

    Reservoir Dogs was based on City On Fire???

    by mr. brownstone

    Thanks for the hot tip Tarantado.

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:33:50 PM CDT

    "Reservoir Dogs" based on Ringo Lam's "City on Fire"?

    by joey jojo

    Really? Wow, I have never heard that anywhere on the internet before. Ever. Not once. It's fresh information like that that keeps me coming back for more. I wonder what is up with that rumor that Han actually shot first...

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:37:49 PM CDT

    Tarantado...

    by mr. brownstone

    Have you seen the hottest new show on television, Miami Vice? It's totally rad.

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 4:41:24 PM CDT

    Korean / Japanese attitudes don't suprise me

    by supernatural_canary

    Philipino girls are very popular as prostitutes in both Japan and Korea, and they are often bought and sold into sexual slavery in both countries.

    Of all the Asian cultures, Japan and Korea are the countries that are most obsessed with racial and cultural purity and seem to view themselves generally as superior.

    The Japanese even considered themselves to be the master race, which is one of the reasons they admired Hitler's similar rhetoric and were allies with Germany during WW II. (That, of course, is a generalization which overlooks the many other reasons for Japanese aggression in WW II, some legitimate, most illegitimate.)

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 09, 2007 5:07:35 PM CDT

    Phillipines

    by bloo

    reminded me a lot of central America where my brother comes from, in fact I joked that I could lose my borther in either Guatamala (his native country) or the Phillipines. I consider them like someone lse said more Malay or South Pacific, I was watching an episode of Dog The Bounty Hunter where the kids ooked like Filipino kids and did similar things when they take picturesand yes Filipino girls are smoking hot...and why does it not surprise me that AICN talkbacker is married to a Filipinoboys who crossdress are also very popular among Japense tourists in the Philippines.

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 10, 2007 12:33:59 AM CDT

    BE CAREFUL...

    by bigblackdude

    A friend of mine was in the military when he went to the Philippines. (forgive the spelling) anyway long story short: he was just about to go home with this chick when she told him she was a BOY! I think Philipino women are fucking gorgeous... just gotta remember to check the panties my friends.

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 10, 2007 1:42:51 AM CDT

    Tarantino is a girl !

    by stamper

    Yes, a woman I know bought him back home, and was surprised to find he was a change !

    Reply to Talkback

  • Aug 12, 2007 1:32:59 PM CDT

    100 greatest Filipino films

    by quentintarantado

    For the talkbackers, I think the country is "Philippines" and the people who live there are "Filipinos" rather than "Philipinos". It's the accepted convention.
    For women, yes, they're hot, and they may not be always female, or even human, which is all right if you're not too picky, haha.
    As for Bloo, who asked for recommendations, try check out this list:
    http://tinyurl.com/3coxzd

    Reply to Talkback

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