The Bamboo Gods Project: Legs... Katawan... Babae! (1981)

1981 - Legs… Katawan… Babae!/"Legs... Body... Girl!" (Margarita Productions)

[Release date 2nd July 1981]

Director Tony Ferrer Story/Screenplay Jerry O. Tirazona, Antonio S. Mortel Producer Tony Ferrer [as "Margarita Productions"] Cinematography Ver Reyes Music George Canseco Editor Edgardo “Boy” Vinarao Sound Effects Editor Jun Martinez Sound Effects Assistants Danny Sanchez, Kokoy Sanchez Sound Engineer Bimbo Chong Production Manager Bonnie C. Esguerra Assistant Director Pepito C. Diaz Special Effects Rolly Sto. Domingo Fight Instructor Alex Bolado Car Stunts Lauro Flores Makeup Artist Francis Perez Settingman Jose Peralta Propsman Robert Abihay Assistant Cameraman Freddie Medez Field Soundman Mer Arguella Unit Manager Jess Bunga Schedule Master Roger Macapagal Post-Production Manager Leonides D. Laxa Assistant Editor Francis Vinarao Layout Artist Jess Garcia Stills Fred Guevarra

Cast The Hagibis [Sonny Parsons, Mike Respall, Bernie Fineza, Joji Garcia, Mon Picazo], Myrna Castillo (Sahlee), Nick Romano (Nick Serbos), Marissa del Mar (Marissa), Mike Cohen (Stan Masterson), Victor Bravo (Rod Valdez), Val Iglesia (Mohawked Biker Leader), Rey Sagum, Renato Robles (Tony Santos), Dinah Dominguez, Monica Brocka, Laarnie Enriquez, Edna Gatchalian, Laura Lopez, Frank Lapid, Ben Dato, Lauro Flores, Alex Bolado, Vic Varrion, Danny Riel (Agent Danny), Mark Joseph, Roger Santos, Rusty Santos (Biker), Rolan Montes, Romy Blanco, Joe Baltazar, Mel Arca, Kent Gonzalez, Danny Ortega, Dante Javier, Mat Fuloso, Cesar Iglesia, Boy Ranay, Bebeng Amora, Ernie David, Big Boy Gomez, Fred Esplana (Tony Falcon's Agent), Rolan Falcis, Ric Sagum, Eric Fresnido, [uncredited] Tony Ferrer (Tony Falcon, Agent X-44), Jess Lapid Jr [listed on poster] (Jessie), Weng Weng [listed on poster] (Midget Dancer), Franco Guerrero (Tony Falcon's Agent), Max Alvarado [listed on poster] (Fat Hagibis), Joaquin Fajardo [listed on poster] (Fat Hagibis)

ACTION/ COMEDY/MUSICAL

STOLEN MUSIC ALERT!!! Steve Wariner’s “Like A River To The Sea” [around 0.16.00]

Excerpt from The Search For Weng Weng book by Andrew Leavold

1981 would prove to be the busiest year for Weng Weng: a total of five film roles, including Legs…Katawan…Babae! ("Legs…Body…Babe!"), a disco biker kung fu musical starring The Hagibis, the Philippines' irony-free version of The Village People, and directed by Agent X-44 himself, Tony Ferrer. Made around the same time of For Y'ur Height Only, it features an uncredited Weng Weng joining The Hagibis for the film's final, glorious showstopper.

If VST were the Pinoy Bee Gees, the local Village People were, without a shadow of doubt, The Hagibis. Five line-dancing guys in leather and motorcycle chaps fronted by the charismatic future action star and director Sonny Parsons, The Hagibis were an unmistakable presence in local films, having already strutted through a show-stopping musical number in Dolphy's Angels (1980), and crooned the theme song to Lito Lapid's Macho Gigolo (1981). In contrast to VST’s satin harmonics, Hagibis were a rugby war chant, ready to bulldoze all comers. Amidst the hubbub of hair helmets, open shirts and gold chains, you get the impression that Hagibis hadn't received the memo that the Village People were in fact a not-so-subtly coded in-joke for the West's homosexual community, which makes their aggressively heterosexual and almost predatory performances even more incongruous. Still, in the Philippines' incredibly macho, and goon-centric male society of the early Eighties, the moustachio'd, motorcycle-riding, denim-hugging Hagibis were chosen by Destiny itself to become the pinnacle of Penile Cool.

Extending the Village People comparison, Hagibis' starring feature Legs…Katawan…Babae! - named after three of their biggest hits to date - was their very own Can't Stop The Music. That is, if the Village People's only starring feature was a biker kung fu goon action spy comedy disco musical.

With Agent X-44 at the helm, it was impossible for Legs…Katawan…Babae! to have been a different beast. As producer, first-time director AND guest star, Tony Ferrer was in Modern Renaissance Man mode. After more than a decade headlining films for his brother Espiridion Laxa's Tagalog Ilang-Ilang Productions, Ferrer emerged from his family’s formidable shadow to form his own company, Margarita Productions, in 1977. By then Ferrer was well past his prime. His body was thickening, his turbot lips more pronounced that ever; the Pinoy Bruce Lees were attracting the greatest share of attention from the chop-sockey-obsessed crowd, while Ferrer had never fully made the transition from karatista to kung fu master. Younger stars such as Rudy Fernandez and Lito Lapid were waiting in the wings, and even the older Ramon Revilla Sr was comfortably coasting through his regulation bandits-with-anting-anting features. Nevertheless, with himself and his brother Nick Romano in generous roles and crony Efren C. Pinon often in the director's chair, producer Ferrer enjoyed a reasonably good six-year run, making a total of ten features.

Legs…Katawan…Babae! opens with pretty agent Sahlee (Myrna Castillo) tested by Tony Falcon, then congratulated by on a job well done (and is promised a bit of fun after the mission's complete). Sahlee is assigned along with agent Nick Serbos (Nick Romano) to crack a confederation of international drug smugglers lorded over by American crime boss Stan Masterson (who else but Mike Cohen, aka Professor Von Kohler in For Your Height Only?). Naturally, Sahlee catches the eye of Sonny Parsons, aspiring action star and leader of vocal group and loose motorcycle gang Hagibis, and between chasing chicks and disco numbers - some line-dancing on stage in a Manila beerhouse, one while splashing around in the surf ("Katawan, katawan, katawan, katawan…oooooooh, katawaaaaaaaan!") - all five Hagibis are dragged into the case.

Before long Agent Falcon, impressed with their kung fu and motorcross skills, deputizes them into the Secret Service and hands them a licence to kill Goons. They then trade kicks with the Syndicate's muscle, a mohawked biker thugs straight out of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), and head to an all-out assault on Masterson's drug factory. Nick watches approvingly as Sahlee, in singlet and hotpants, blasts the goons' cars with her grenade launcher; cut to cowboy hero Jess Lapid Jr on his horse as he receives Sahlee's signal via walkie-talkie. Jess then rides in on horseback, blasts a few baddies with machine gun fire, before riding off into the sunset. Which, technically, makes Legs…Katawan…Babae! a biker kung fu goon action spy comedy disco musical WESTERN.

It's like an endless, delirious Disco party inside Tony Ferrer's cocktail-addled head, a distillation of all things gaudy, goonlike, and definitely not gay. Two members of the original Goon Convention appear in bit roles: Rusty Santos as a bald biker, and Franco Guerrero as one of Tony Falcon's agents – in my interviews with Franco, he couldn't remember that he, too, was one of Weng Weng's co-stars! Even veteran kontribada Max Alvarado gets in on the act, joining Joaquin Fajardo and three other fat and toothless goons at a beach hut as they dance and mime and wobble their exposed bellies in front pf plus-sized models to a Hagibis number ("Legs! Legs! Legs!") - before the Real Hagibis arrive and beat up Fat Hagibis. Inside the beach hut the five guys mount the stage for their final number, a magnificent hand-clapping, proud proclamation to hetero love - think "In The Navy", only straighter and chintzier - and are joined on stage by Sahlee and a random selection of jiggling bikini girls.

Without warning Weng Weng appears from the audience, does a handstand, then flips onto stage, boogies in front of Myrna, and is then held aloft on one of The Hagibis' shoulders, from which he beams, jiggles and fist-bumps the air in time with the music, more or less, during the film's closing moments.

The effect? Devastating. Mind-exploding. Like watching the greatest car-crash moments of Filipino B cinema crushed into a compact 100-minute cube of exquisitely boneheaded Crazy.