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Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Wenceslao: Da King
By Bong O. Wenceslao
My romance with Tagalog movies started when I was a Grade 6 pupil at the City Central School. I would save my bawon, cut classes and go to the cheap theaters that showed two second-run movies per ticket. That continued when I went to the Cebu City National Science High School—until my father discovered my caper and punished me.
My favorites were martial arts movies of popular action stars then like Roberto Gonzales, Ramon Zamora, etc.--caricatures all of Chinese Kung Fu acts like Wang Yu, Meng Fei, Shoji Karada, Chen Xing and others. Of course, Pinoys, too aped the spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood et al—and nobody did it better than Fernando Poe Jr.
In Cebu, some producers tried to revive the Cebuano film industry by turning into a movie the very popular radio soap “Diego Salvador.” I can no longer recall its stars, but what I do remember were the horses that apparently were on leave from pulling paradas in Duljo—they were so small and emaciated the big men riding them were laughable.
But back to FPJ. His movies were often the subject of the nightly conversation of my barkada when I was still in short pants. Or more specifically we would talk about the stunts. He was the personification of the Diego Salvador in our minds—defender of the oppressed, quick to the draw, handsome. And by the way, he had the better-fed horse.
My friends would ape the fighting-style in his films and laugh. Those scenes were repetitive, but so were the “Let’s volt in!” visuals and background music of Voltes 5”—we lapped it up because it signaled the vanquishing of the tormentors. I am referring to the makinilya punches against Paquito or Romy Diaz or any other movie kontrabidas.
But that was when I was younger. Years later, I would proceed to more serious concerns of the nation and view Tagalog films in a more critical manner. FPJ would do lesser films and younger stars would shine, from Lito Lapid, to Rudy Fernandez, Philip Salvador down to Raymart Santiago. But there was only one Da King, and it was FPJ.
I was one of those vocal in my criticism of FPJ’s candidacy in the last presidential elections, and I have no regrets about that. I felt that FPJ, for all the good deeds attributed to him, was not qualified to lead this country. That, though, does not take away anything much from my appreciation of him as a movie star. His death, then, is one big loss.
TEXTREAX. From Pol of Minglanilla: “Kun mosulti ta batok sa drugas, patyon ta. Kun mosulti ta batok sa video carrera, patyon ta. Kun mosulti ta batok sa PBMA, patyon ta. Kun moadto tas Luzon, patay tas baha. Unsa na ni, uy!”
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ 0927-4912362)
(December 15, 2004 issue)
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