“It’s slow, badly scripted, and poorly researched.”
I seldom make comments about a movie or a show, Hollywood or local. I make an exception after watching on Netflix the locally produced television drama series entitled “Pulang Araw,” produced by GMA Entertainment, depicting a fictionalized life of a family during the Japanese Occupation. The Japanese Imperial Forces occupied the whole country for almost four years from 1942 to 1946. I am compelled to say something about it, because I lived through those dangerous times.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1942 (7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time) the Japanese started bombing sites around Baguio and Iba Airfield in Zambales, and then Clark Air Base and Naval Station Sangley Point, which were then occupied by the Americans. Manila was declared an “Open City” to prevent the Japanese from bombing Manila.
There was an attempt by the Philippine Air Force to stop any bombing of the city. The heroic attempt of Capt. Jesus Villamor and the 6th Pursuit Squadron became a source of encouragement among the ground forces and civilians who witnessed their defense over the skies of Luzon – even though they were outnumbered. The current Villamor Air Base was named after the hero.
“Pulang Araw” is the story of a family named Borromeo. It was about the father who is a vaudeville theater owner and his two daughters, the legitimate Teresita and the illegitimate Adelina during the Japanese Occupation. The whole movie revolves around the love stories of Teresita, in love with a Filipino guerilla named Eduardo, and Adelina, in love with Hiroshi, the son of a Japanese trader.
What I found funny was when the two daughters, Teresita and Adelina, wore American style wool hats, which never happened at that time. Aside from American style hats (no Filipina would wear a wool hat in the Philippines with its hot weather), they were shown wearing hand gloves. Obviously there was not enough research done by the costume designer of the movie.
The drama series has 99 episodes. As of this writing, I’ve seen 43 already.
The vaudeville theater owner loses his big house when the Japanese make it their headquarters. Coming to the rescue is a good Samaritan, a former Japanese trader. The Japanese trader offered them refuge in his home because his son was in love with Adelina.
I was a teenager of 15 during the war. I had lived in Manila before the war because our family joined my two older brothers who were studying in Manila. During the war, we also joined them in the mountains of the Cordilleras when they were part of the guerilla movement in northern Luzon.
It was only after the Americans landed in the Philippines when my family returned to Manila, but not before the “Rape of Manila” when General Tomiyuki Yamashita ordered the killing of men, women and children south of the Pasig River. They killed everybody in their homes and churches where Filipinos were hiding. Even the hospitals were not spared.
Manila was described as the second most devastated city in the world, next only to Warsaw, during the Second World War.
While I lived through that war, Santa Banana, God forbid, I hope and pray we never see another war. It could mean the end of the world as we know it.
Yes, my gulay, I lived through World War II by the grace of God, and so did my family because we were in the province, no longer in Manila at that time when a sackful of Japanese Mickey Mouse money could buy only a ganta of rice.
I could write a book about my experiences during the Japanese Occupation. I was a teenager and I saw it as an adventure. But going back to that boring local drama series “Pulang Araw”, if my good friend, lawyer Felipe Gozon were still the CEO of GMA, I am sure he would not allow that movie to be shown to the public. It’s slow, badly scripted, and poorly researched.
