The recently hailed Box Office Queen returned to Kapamilya Primetime as Malia in the third installment of the Imortal series titled La Luna Sangre. Together with her perennial leading man Daniel Padilla, who plays Tristan, Malia wowed the viewers. The love team showcased their fiercer and bolder side in the fantasy-action serye.
Lauded for not having a double, Kathryn Bernardo immediately revealed during her debut on the show on June 26 her potential in action.
But she was most lauded during her performance on the June 28 episode with her enviable stunts and notable acting skills. The latter episode showed her character Malia being beaten up real hard in order to unleash her powers as the “Bagong Itinakda.”
Netizens even raved about how she approached the said scene with some even calling her “The Best Actress of her generation” for “establishing herself with her astounding acting prowess.” The bankable actress revealed her versatility in the succeeding episodes even further as she nailed the combination of the action, drama and comedy scenes.
Angel Locsin, who portrayed the role of Lia in the last I- installment, even praised Kathryn for being “on fire” as Malia.
Touted by as “The Newest Primetime Action Queen,” Kathryn mentally and physically prepared for Malia by undergoing combat trainings like pekiti tirsia kali and wushu for the action scenes.
Kathryn had drop her soft side since pekiti is a style of fighting that combines the use of arnis and daggers with close-combat maneuvers. She also had to learn to move with certain firmness while training in wushu as it helped in the choreography for big action movements.
The pilot episode of the soap on June 20, with the pioneers of Imortal—John Lloyd Cruz and Ange Locsin as Mateo and Lia, was received well with a nationwide rating of 33.9 percent.
The show was able to sustain its lead against its competition with steady 30s in ratings. Its second day garnered a 35 percent rating, it had 33.6 percent on Wednesday, and 33.9 percent on Thursday. The action-packed pilot week ended with the show’s record high of 35.2 percent on Friday.
The show’s June 26 episode, which happened to be the first day of Kathryn and Daniel’s appearance complete with action scenes garnered a total of 34.5 ratings. Since that episode, Kathryn and Daniel proved their bankability in primetime as the ratings stayed steadily in the 30s. For Tuesday the show had 34 percent ratings. By Wednesday the show had 32.8 percent, but it soared again on the following day to 35.1 percent and ended on a good note with 32.8 percent on Friday. This week started with 34.8 percent ratings based on Kantar National TV Ratings.
Since its debut, La Luna Sangre has been a nightly topic in social media as it dominated the Twitter trending topics.
The show not only raked in viewership on TV but even on the ABS-CBN content platform iWant TV. Two weeks in and La Luna Sangre has topped the Most Popular Shows chart in iWant TV with a roughly 2.5 million views.