Mano Po Iii My Adore
Mano Po is actually a series of movies — with completely unconnected stories — about Chinese-Filipinos. Why they are generically named “Mano Po” — which is Tagalog for the custom of children showing respect to their elders — I can’t say.
This one begins having a flashback to 1959, having a desperate mother who’s just had but yet another baby girl, giving her to a couple fleeing the country, in hopes she’ll have a better opportunity at life that way than if given to a government orphanage, no doubt truthfully, circumstances are terrible.
The couple take off in a horse-drawn wagon that reminded me of a pioneer stage coach (did many men and women in the People’s Republic of 1959 have horse-drawn wagons? I realize they did not have vehicles. I thought all horses could be property of a commune, and everybody either walked or rode a bicycle.)
Anyway, they wind up inside the Philippines (How effortless was it for Chinese people to escape the mainland? I do not know.) Lilia grows up as a Filipino, falls in really like with Michael, and the two of them and their buddy Paul join the resistance against Marcos.
Most of the film, however, is the slow plodding agonizing of Lilia right after encountering Michael again, learning he’s alive and living in America and still in love with her.
Trouble is, she married Paul, and they’ve children (only they know the oldest, their only son, is really Michael’s), a prospering organization and an upcoming twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration planned.
She’s a crusader against corruption within the Philippines National Police, who’s succeeded in putting some corrupt police in jail.
Michael comes towards the Philippines soon after her. For me, his confession that his wife committed suicide due to the fact she realized he was nonetheless in really like with Lilia was a genuine turn off. But Lilia does not let it faze her.
She has to cope using the hostility of her inlaws, by no means effectively hidden since they did not approve of her marriage within the first location.
Vilma Santos turns in a expert performance. She’s still terrific searching, and she and Christopher de Leon nonetheless make a good pair — how numerous times have they been an on-screen couple? Nevertheless, I often hope she’ll concentrate much more on being the governor of the province of Batangas, where my family lives, than on her acting career.
Not that it’s surprising she would go from movies to politics. A lot of Filipinos do. Ronald Reagan is not an oddity there. And Kris Aquino went from politics to movies and show organization. Possibly she’ll wind up back in politics – who knows? Her huge brother has only five and a half more years remaining as president.
In the end, Lilia goes back to fighting corruption — though it’s too late for poor Paul — and says, “It (The Philippines) could be the only country I have.” I wonder if that is a politically appropriate statement to demonstration that Chinese Filipinos are just as loyal as Malay Filipinos. I do not know.
But for my taste this is far an excessive amount of about enjoy and broken hearts and complex relationships. It is a Filipino chick flick.
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