Went to SM Mall of Asia last Saturday with high school friends Ketz, Mark and Carlo to watch Sukob. Truth to tell, the movie succeeded in scaring me out of my wits! I never liked Feng Shui and I was snickering for the most part of that film so I was expecting the same from this film. Well, okay, I did snickered and giggled like mad while watching Sukob, but it was more of a nervous giggle to cover the fact that I was shit scared! Damn, my heart was still beating like crazy after the movie ended!
(Oops. spoilers! skip this part if you don’t want to know the movie’s plot.)
Sukob (overlapping) is one of our old Filipino pamahiin (superstitions). There are actually two kinds of sukob – one is sukob sa kasal (siblings marrying within the same year) and the other is sukob sa patay (a person marrying within the same year of a death in the family). Malas (bad luck) supposedly will haunt those who didn’t observe this pamahiin.
I like the twists in the movie’s plot. Sandy (Kris Aquino) wrongly blamed her initial misfortunes to a deceased friend, Helen (whose marriage was also cursed because it was “sukob sa patay”), because her husband’s cousin (or was it niece?) Joya (Maja Salvador – and I honestly don’t know who she was!) had a premonition of another woman having the same misfortunes. It turns out that the woman in the premonition was Sandy's half sister, Diana (Claudine Barretto), who got married a day before. What’s significant in this twist is that the sisters had bad luck because of their father’s (Ronaldo Valdez) indiscretion. Ronaldo (sorry I forgot his name in the movie) abandoned Diana and her mom to save his marriage to Boots Anson Roa, Sandy’s mother. The sisters went through with their weddings not knowing that the other had another sister who was also about to get married. It was like another Filipino cultural belief that daughters are pambayad utang ng mga tatay (especially if the father is a philandering one). At least in this movie, the daughters truly pay for the sins of their fathers.
My major pet peeve with the movie was the way Wendell Ramos’s death was handled. It was a scene straight from The Ring (though I have to admit that it is still scary). I wish they had devised another scene instead of a Sadako ripoff (also, since those who died before Wendell did die through horrific accidents and their bodies mysteriously disappear, Wendell’s death scene would have been better if he died in the same manner rather than just disappearing).
And, I might be alone with this opinion, but I really don’t like Kris’s acting in this movie. I was actually giggling because Kris looked like she was about to shout “Game ka na ba?” in her earlier scenes. And her “My God! I’m so scared!!!” acting is limited to shaking her head and crunching her eyes. Her scenes with Wendell are too contrived and they don’t have chemistry on-screen. The same can be said between her and Claudine. Despite Claudine being the better actress between the two, I didn’t feel that they were sisters who share a sinister bond in their scenes together.
For me, Ronaldo Valdez dished out the best acting in the film. I don’t know how to explain it, but in the scene after Boots Anson-Roa died and her body disappeared, Ronaldo was just damn great. He was in denial that his wife had just died and his dialogues were really funny, but you can still feel his grief, that he was trying too hard to mask his loss by refusing to accept the truth. Hay, you really have to see it to know what I’m talking about!
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. And it’s the sort of film that you have to see in theaters because the fun is actually in the collective screaming and nervous giggling of the moviegoers!
(and why do I keep on typing sukod instead of sukob?!)
********************
After watching the movie, we watched the fireworks display at the mall. I am such a sucker for fireworks display that even if the display was not in the same caliber as the ones I witness in the Pyro Olympics, I was still enthralled. There’s nothing like loud bangs and colorful bursts in the sky to lighten up your night!
We had our dinner at Dencio’s in CCP and then went to Starbucks to continue our chat session. Weird, because the main topic of the day seem to be our past heartbreaks and yet it was still all fun, fun, fun! Probably because we were able to talk and laugh about our experiences without feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed. My high school classmates had changed a bit from how I remembered them before, but somehow, things still seems familiar and comfortable.
(Oops. spoilers! skip this part if you don’t want to know the movie’s plot.)
Sukob (overlapping) is one of our old Filipino pamahiin (superstitions). There are actually two kinds of sukob – one is sukob sa kasal (siblings marrying within the same year) and the other is sukob sa patay (a person marrying within the same year of a death in the family). Malas (bad luck) supposedly will haunt those who didn’t observe this pamahiin.
I like the twists in the movie’s plot. Sandy (Kris Aquino) wrongly blamed her initial misfortunes to a deceased friend, Helen (whose marriage was also cursed because it was “sukob sa patay”), because her husband’s cousin (or was it niece?) Joya (Maja Salvador – and I honestly don’t know who she was!) had a premonition of another woman having the same misfortunes. It turns out that the woman in the premonition was Sandy's half sister, Diana (Claudine Barretto), who got married a day before. What’s significant in this twist is that the sisters had bad luck because of their father’s (Ronaldo Valdez) indiscretion. Ronaldo (sorry I forgot his name in the movie) abandoned Diana and her mom to save his marriage to Boots Anson Roa, Sandy’s mother. The sisters went through with their weddings not knowing that the other had another sister who was also about to get married. It was like another Filipino cultural belief that daughters are pambayad utang ng mga tatay (especially if the father is a philandering one). At least in this movie, the daughters truly pay for the sins of their fathers.
My major pet peeve with the movie was the way Wendell Ramos’s death was handled. It was a scene straight from The Ring (though I have to admit that it is still scary). I wish they had devised another scene instead of a Sadako ripoff (also, since those who died before Wendell did die through horrific accidents and their bodies mysteriously disappear, Wendell’s death scene would have been better if he died in the same manner rather than just disappearing).
And, I might be alone with this opinion, but I really don’t like Kris’s acting in this movie. I was actually giggling because Kris looked like she was about to shout “Game ka na ba?” in her earlier scenes. And her “My God! I’m so scared!!!” acting is limited to shaking her head and crunching her eyes. Her scenes with Wendell are too contrived and they don’t have chemistry on-screen. The same can be said between her and Claudine. Despite Claudine being the better actress between the two, I didn’t feel that they were sisters who share a sinister bond in their scenes together.
For me, Ronaldo Valdez dished out the best acting in the film. I don’t know how to explain it, but in the scene after Boots Anson-Roa died and her body disappeared, Ronaldo was just damn great. He was in denial that his wife had just died and his dialogues were really funny, but you can still feel his grief, that he was trying too hard to mask his loss by refusing to accept the truth. Hay, you really have to see it to know what I’m talking about!
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. And it’s the sort of film that you have to see in theaters because the fun is actually in the collective screaming and nervous giggling of the moviegoers!
(and why do I keep on typing sukod instead of sukob?!)
********************
After watching the movie, we watched the fireworks display at the mall. I am such a sucker for fireworks display that even if the display was not in the same caliber as the ones I witness in the Pyro Olympics, I was still enthralled. There’s nothing like loud bangs and colorful bursts in the sky to lighten up your night!
We had our dinner at Dencio’s in CCP and then went to Starbucks to continue our chat session. Weird, because the main topic of the day seem to be our past heartbreaks and yet it was still all fun, fun, fun! Probably because we were able to talk and laugh about our experiences without feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed. My high school classmates had changed a bit from how I remembered them before, but somehow, things still seems familiar and comfortable.
And the best part? I learned three new words! These were, uh, life-enriching additions to my vocabulary hahaha! I think I need to go out more to catch up with my friends’ vocabulary! =p
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