1967 – The Experts (Wag-Wag Productions/Emar Productions) AGENT 69 #9
[Release date 6th March 1967]
Director Abelardo Cortez Story Rey Ylag Screenplay Greg B. Macabenta Music Raul T. Silos
Cast Alberto Alonzo (Agent 69), Eddie Garcia, Rod Navarro, Joe Sison, Nort Nepomuceno, Bernard Belleza, Paquito Salcedo, Hosping Pregonero, Eddie Torrente, Elsa Bouffard, Jill Hamilton, Marilou Ver, Lucien Pan, Liza Belmonte
SPY/ACTION
NOTE: The ninth in a series of Filipino spy thrillers starring Eddie Fernandez as Agent 69, the very first of a long line of Pinoy James Bonds. The entire series is currently believed to be lost.
1964 – Bakas Ng Dragon/“Trace Of A Dragon” (People’s Pictures) LAGALAG #2
[Release date 18th July 1964]
Director Cirio H. Santiago Screenplay Teodorico C. Santos Music Tito Arevalo Layout Artist Eddie Domer
Cast Eddie Fernandez (Lagalag), Gina Alonzo (Laura), Celia Rodriguez, Eva Montes, Ramon D’Salva, Ruben Rustia, Ely Ramos Jr, Tommy Romulo, Bruno Punzalan, Abelardo Cortes, Paquito Salcedo, Miriam Jurado, Nancy Roman, Ruby Regala, Adora Neri, Lydia Aguilar, Lourdes Ramos, Fred Param, Vicky Velasquez
SPY/ACTION
NOTES: The second in a series of Filipino spy thrillers initiated by director Cirio H. Santiago, starring Eddie Fernandez as Agent Lagalag, and Gina Alonzo as Laura, his Girl Friday. The entire series is currently believed to be lost.
*1975 - Darna vs The Planet Women (Tagalog Ilang-Ilang Productions)
[Release date 25th December 1975; working title “Darna vs Elektra”**]
Director/Screenplay Armando Garces Based on the komik character by Mars Ravelo Executive Producer [uncredited] Attorney Espiridion Laxa Cinematography Amado de Guzman Music Carding Cruz Editor Efren Jarlego Sound Supervisor Luis Reyes Sound Effects Ramon Reyes, Sebastian Sayson Sound Mixer Narciso Teope Production-In-Charge Cayetano Lalic Production Manager Leo Valdez Art Director Ben Otico Assistant Director Deo Careza Special Photographic Effects Tommy Marcelino Makeup Artist Cecille Baun Vilma Santos' Makeup Dading Ravela Costumes Rudy Diego Propsman Mariano Otico Setting Ambrocio Diaz Assistant Cameraman Delfin Teope Field Soundman Ernesto Eusia? Schedule Master Oddie Reyes Assistant Editor Arman Jarlego Stills Ric Yonzon
Cast Vilma Santos (Darna/Narda), Rosanna Ortiz (Elektra), Zandro Zamora (Ramon), Bentot Jr (Ding), Eva Linda (Orak), Lita Vasquez (Kara), Diana Villa (Planet Woman), Lieza Zobel (Planet Woman), Joe Sison (Dr Jereky Usman), Virginia Montes (Dr Anastasia Madrid), Veronica Palileo [as Veronica Palilio] (Lola), Paquito Salcedo (Dr Antonio Villafuerte), Pons de Guzman (Dr Zarko), Steve Alcarado (Teban), Leon Fajardo, Nestor Rueda, Max Rojo, Kristy Kintanar, Romy Luartes, Joseph Jardinato, Jimmy Diamante?, Luciano Parejo, The Tanay Boys
Proposed Cast** Vilma Santos (Darna/Narda), Rosanna Ortiz (Elektra), Zandro Zamora (Ramon), Bentot Jr (Ding), Pamela Munoz (Noche), Lieza Rodriguez (Magia), Lita Vasquez (Kara), Eva Linda (Oran), Ely Roque (Lola), Paquito Salcedo (Dr Villafuerte), Joe de Guzman (Dr Zarko), Patria Plata (Dr Madrid), Joe Sison (Dr Usman)
FANTASY/COSTUMED SUPERHERO/ACTION
*credits checked and believed to be complete
** According to the 1975 synopsis submitted to the Board of Censors
Review by Andrew Leavold
The film dates from one of the last Golden Ages of Filipino cinema, the early Seventies, in which over 200 feature films a year were produced for an exclusively Philippines audience. One of the reasons of the local industry's phenomenal success is the audience's close identification with their superstars, and none more so than a duo of teenaged girls, Vilma Santos and Nora Aunor. In fact to this day Filipinos over a certain age will argue over whether they were a Vilmerian – a fanatical follower of the mestiza or lighter-skinned regal beauty Vilma – or Noranian, those who favoured the shorter, flat-nosed and darker-skinned Nora. Fan clubs and magazines, TV shows, press interest over their teen love affairs with fellow co-stars (the “love-teams” of Guy and Pip, Vi and Bot): an entire mini-industry sprang up devoted to their lives, loves and supposed rivalry. Both became two of the most respected actresses of their generation, and yet it was Vilma who eventually landed the role of the most successful komik character in Philippines history.
Darna may be easily dismissed by many as a cheap Pinoy knockoff of Superman or Wonder Woman, but there's much more to her. Since her first appearance in the burgeoning komik industry in 1947, she captured the imagination of the komik-reading underclasses: Narda is an innocent country lass who has superpowers thrust upon her transforming her into the costumed Darna to protect the world, the Philippines, her village, her family, and most of all, her younger brother Ding. It's wish fulfilment for girls, pure cheesecake for boys, and after sixty years - her first film appearance was in 1950, the last TV series a few years ago - Darna is still a much-revered staple of Philippines pop culture.
Darna vs The Planet Women from 1975 is the most fun and certainly most colourful of Vilma's stint, thought strangely enough it's as if the previous Darna adventures had never occurred, or had slipped into a Black Hole where most of the Philippines' lost cinema must also exist. Instead we are reintroduced to Narda, unremarkable country lass with a heart of gold and serious limp. Her two great loves, it seems, are chubby little brother Ding, and her awkward beau Ramon. An altercation with the local goons ends with a flying saucer suddenly appearing over a field, and Ramon is beamed aboard. It's a ship piloted by Elektra (Rosanna Ortiz), blue leader of a pack of painted space floozies clad in primary colour wigs, shower caps and AM radios strapped to them. Narda feels bad about losing her guy to a space sorority, but a kindly voice tells her to stop worrying and plonks a magic stone in her lap. On the cry of “Darna!”, Narda transforms from unglamorous barrio girl – unassuming, with very little makeup - into gaudy statue of pure womanhood. No wonder poor Ding's eyeballs are almost dropping to the ground like marbles.
The Planet Women, it seems, are here to study human behaviour - whether they like it or not – and are intent on kidnapping the world's leading scientists. Not so, says Darna, who flies into their spaceship to play the jealous girlfriend bit. She gets back Ramon, but it won't be the last time the Planet Women gain control over the weak-willed boob. It's a real battle of minds: desperate kung-fu kicking Star Slappers against the self-righteous Darna in an escalating series of face-offs and showdowns for the ultimate prize – the fate of the Earth itself.
It's a triumph of Seventies Tack, a distillation of pre-Star Wars sci-fi to its gaudiest elements, and a tinfoil tribute to Barbarella: ugly styleless furniture painted silver and doubling as cosmic chic. The Planet Women themselves are sex on a stick for the under-twelves; my favourites are a toss-up between The Blonde, bewigged and bejeweled, with a gorgeous set of love handles and looking like a Twenties' flapper straight out of Ken Russell's rejected costume sketches for The Boyfriend, and the Blue One, primarily because you can see under the bikini line where the blue makeup ends!
At times cheerfully derivative, and at best a vivid interweaving of overseas archetypes and local folk tales, you'll have to admit you've never seen anything like it before, as we bring you for the first time translated and subtitled into English, Darna vs The Planet Women.
1975 – Sleeping Dragon (Sultan Films/Emperor Films International)
[A Filipino-Hong Kong co-production filmed in the Philippines, Philippines release date 24th April 1975]
Directors Ishmael Bernal, Jimmy L. Pascual Story Ophelia San Juan Screenplay Wilfred D. Nolledo Producers Ophelia San Juan, Elizabeth Pascual Executive Producer Jimmy L. Pascual Cinematography Chris Chang Music Lucio D. San Pedro
Cast Raymond Lui [Shing-Gung] (Ricardo "Carding" Lung Guevarra), Lotis Key (Maria Linda), Eddie Garcia (Don Andres), Charlie Davao, Chan Ling-Wai, Lou Salvador Jr (Carding's Filipino Friend), Johnny Delgado (Carding's Filipino Friend), Joe de Castro (Carding’s Filipino Friend), Maricru del Gallego, Greg Lozano, Lee Chiu, Lau Jun-Fai, Danny Chow Yun-Gin [as Chow Kin], Lau Chong, Carlos Padilla Jr, Lucita Soriano, Tony Carreon [as Tony Carrion], Jose Garcia, Jose Villafranca, Alfonso Carvajal, Paolo Baron, Philip Coo, Jun Garcia, Paquito Salcedo, SOS Daredevils, Bayanihan Philippine Dance Co & Rondalla, Georgie Quizon, Manok, Penggot
KUNG FU/PERIOD DRAMA
NOTES by Andrew Leavold: I have been searching for two decades for a copy of this film and am yet to find trace of a single film print, video tape or digital transfer. If anyone can help me out, I would be immensely grateful!
A co-production between Jimmy L. Pascual’s Emperor Films International, a Filipino producer based in Hong Kong from the early Seventies until around the time of this release, and Filipino company Sultan Films credited to Ophelia San Juan – a writer turned producer (Ophelia San Juan Productions) – and Elizabeth Pascual, believed to be a Philippines-based relative of Jimmy’s. From all evidence available, it was Sultan Films’ only production; within the year, Jimmy Pascual had returned to the Philippines and his Emperor Films concentrated on the local market.
Sleeping Dragon is remarkable as co-director Ishmael Bernal’s solitary export title – the future National Artist had already helmed a number of critically-acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful films in various genres (action, comedy, fantasy). Although Bernal shares screen credit with Emperor Films’ Jimmy L. Pascual, we can only assume that Pascual’s directorial input was minimal, and the glowing Pilipino Express review reprinted below fails to even mention Pascual once.
From its historical sweep and attention to detail, Emperor Films clearly had high hopes for international sales, yet I can find very little evidence of theatrical releases outside of the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Pascual’s familiar hunting grounds (the Filipino diaspora in Hawaii, Guam, and the Continental US). Perhaps the kung fu market was on the decline; and although the subject must have held considerable appeal to its Chinese-Filipino producers and co-director, maybe the film was too “Filipino” for a global audience. Sleeping Dragon was certainly a disappointment for Jimmy Pascual, and one of the main reasons why he left Hong Kong and made smaller films for a Tagalog audience.
ISHMAEL BERNAL on Sleeping Dragon: “Tapos naligaw ‘yong [then you have the lost] Sleeping Dragon, another high point in my ‘distinguished career’ as an observer of social situations. It starred Raymond Liu, a Chinese kung fu actor, and Lotis Key, who was also into martial arts back then. It was a script by Wilfriedo Nolledo and I did not understand it at all. I went through this thing blindly. There was this Hong Kong fight instructor who would take over – since the movie is a series of fights – and I would sit and go to sleep most of the time because I cannot direct a kung fu fight scene.” [from his autobiography Pro Bernal Anti Bernal edited by Angelia Stuart-Santiago, ABS-CBN Publishing, Quezon City, 2017, p. 101]
T.D. Agcaoili, “Sleeping Dragon Has Its Historical Values”, Pilipino Express, April 1975, pp.29-30 [exact date unknown]
The Wilfredo D. Nolledo screenplay of Ophelia San Juan’s story, Sleeping Dragon, has been translated into an outstanding film by Director Ishmael Bernal with artistic evocations of the historical period – 1603 – in which the story, that of the events that lead to the first Parian or Chinese rebellion in the Philippines, occurred.
Yet, aside from its historical values, Sleeping Dragon utilizes popular materials such as kung fu and arnis de mano, and also romantic love, to reach a mass-oriented entertainment level. And by this method, presumably, put across to a wider audience some political values that belong more to a Rizal novel than to a standard Filipino movie.
In this case, however, Sleeping Dragon is not a standard Filipino movie. It is Philippine cinema that rightly belongs to the concept of culture that the New Society is energetically developing in all the arts, more eminently in music, the dance and theatrical stage than in the mass medium of the cinema, which is more complex as an art form.
Briefly, the story of Sleeping Dragon concerns the struggles of a Crisostomo Ibarra-Elias synthesis of a Chinese-Filipino hero, Ricardo Lung Gueverra (Raymond Lui) to relieve the oppression suffered by Chinese and Filipinos from the Spanish colonizers during the first century of the Spanish occupation of the Philippines through heavy taxation and forced labor. There is a love story, a triangle actually, between Carding (as Lung is called in the story) and Maria Linda (Lotis Key), daughter of a Laguna town alcade, and the Spanish alguacil mayor Don Andres (Eddie Garcia). Maria Linda is the antithesis of the proverbial Maria Clara: she is headstrong, wilful and, allegedly typical of the “indios” that the early Spanish colonizers encountered – not demure, and far from being subservient to the politics of their elders.
Sleeping Dragon is well-researched into the history of the Parian rebellion of 1603: there are the Three Mandarins who came to Manila from Cathay, ostensibly to look for the fabled Mountain of Gold (Paracale, possibly) but were suspected by the Spanish governor, Acuna, of espying on the fortifications and Spanish defenses in Intramuros, and the Chinese Governor Eng Kang who counted the number of his adherents to the fight for justice and freedom by the quantity of needles handed secretly to him by the Chinese residents of Manila and surrounding provinces.
The film also notably presents, side by side with kung fu, the Philippines’ own martial arts, the kali system of fighting. This is eminently and, we have to admit it, gloriously presented in Sleeping Dragon by a trio of Filipino actors, Johnny Delgado, Lou Salvador Jr and the late Joe de Castro. Delgado uses a prototype of the modern Batangueno knife, and he uses this weapon adroitly. Salvador practiced the art of arnis fighting, according to the credits, under Ernesto Presas, a sergeant in the Philippine Air Force who took time out to train Salvador in the intricacies of the ornate and lethal art, De Castro employs a pair of tui-fa (handle), a weapon introduced in the Philippines by the early Okinawan-Japanese settlers.
The Filipino system of martial arts supports the kung fu of Lui, and the sequences of fighting that punctuate the romantic and political dramatic situations in Sleeping Dragon point to a colorful Philippine past that might well revive the interest in Oriental martial arts, this time specifically on the Philippine kali system.
Sleeping Dragon is also notable for its original musical scoring, including the main title music that is symphonic, organic to the theme of the picture, and Filipino in idiom, composed and directed by Lucio D. San Pedro.
But the overall excellent quality of Sleeping Dragon, which involves a mixed group of Filipino, Hong Kong and Japanese players and technicians, can be easily attributed to the persipicacious direction of Ishmael Bernal, who handles crowd scenes effectively and whose training in the nouvelle vague cinema of the French is put into intelligent use in this entertaining, yet artistic, film.
Raymond Lui [Shing-Gung] (Ricardo "Carding" Lung Guevarra)
Lotis Key
(Maria Linda)
Eddie Garcia (Don Andres)
Charlie Davao
Chan Ling-Wai
THEATRICAL
PHILIPPINES – 24th April 1975
HONG KONG - date unknown
GUAM – 9th to 15th April 1976 (Hafa Adai 2, Tamuning); December 1976 (Cinema, Tamuning, as the second feature to a Jimmy Wang Yu film)
HAWAII – 4th August 1976 (two weeks at the Hawaii Theatre in Pauahi and the Kam Drive-In); November 1976
USA - 29th June 1976 (Tampa, Florida); March 1977 and June 1978 (Miami)
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