In “One Good Day,” Pinoy action gets a contemporary glow-up. The six-part series, directed by veteran stunt director Lester Ong, focuses on the redemption story of a former mobster (played by Ian Veneracion) who returns to his organized crime roots to avenge his loved ones. Veneracion’s character Dale is a familiar persona for fans of Western action: a good man who’s willing to do dastardly things for the people close to him. The series features long, drawn out fight sequences that don’t hold back on the gore when needed — in the first episode alone, Veneracion’s Dale expertly wields a knife before sticking it right in the carotid artery of an unsuspecting henchman. It’s the first project of Studio 360 outfit, a content production house formed by television and film veterans. The entire series is streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
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READ: After 40 years in showbiz, Ian Veneracion still won’t act his age
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Filmed in Iloilo, Ong says that “One Good Day’s” underlying goal was to portray the kingmakers in the country, incredible individuals putting their cronies in key government positions to maintain their power. “There’s a reality to it that the real mobsters are living the opulent life [in the Philippines] and they are seldom shown in movies or in series,” Ong says. “At least by the international audience.”
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It would make sense that the Philippines should come up with more content within the action sphere — we’re pretty much primed for it. Some of the biggest action films in Hollywood have Filipino or Filipino-American stunt directors. Robert Alonzo was the stunt coordinator on “The Batman” who taught Robert Pattinson eskrima (also known as arnis or kali). It can be challenging to notice the signature movements without the baston or wooden sticks used in arnis, but the movements are clearly defined. It’s a lot more practical than flair, quite unlike karate or capoeira. Its simplicity, some martial arts practitioners would argue, is what makes it so lethal.
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“Look at the eskrimadors in the Philippines who are 80 years old, it’s very hard to take them down,” Alonzo said in a previous interview. “I think some of the fiercest warriors this planet has ever seen are Filipinos.”
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While Filipino martial arts holds a place of distinction in international productions, big budget action films are few and far between in the 50 or so films produced locally each year. When was the last time we had an action star — or had enough bravado to be considered as the Action King — as beloved and prolific as the late Fernando Poe Jr? Perhaps it would be the late Rudy “Daoy” Fernandez, who is the subject of the 2015 docu “The Last Pinoy Action King” by directors Andrew Leavold and Daniel Palisa, which focuses on the life of Daboy, whose regular guy appeal also made him beloved by the masses. The closest we have in contemporary times would probably be Coco Martin in his years-long stint as Ador/Cardo in “Ang Probinsyano,” who brought Pinoy action into primetime television for eight seasons.
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With decades of experience in stunt work and as a wushu athlete, Ong attests how he has seen action films grow and eventually stagnate in the last few decades, despite the wealth of talent among stunt people and martial artists. Perhaps this is why many actors from action films eventually go into politics; not much to do.
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“The pinoy action genre was the FPJ [era]… the traditional Filipino action was heavily influenced by Hollywood cowboy movies,” Ong recalls. “When you look at their fighting styles, their rhythm, their choreography, it’s heavily influenced by Clint Eastwood type of movies. Western. It fits the character and the genre of Fernando Poe Jr. It was good, but these days, the industry is looking for something new… When it comes to these martial arts, we’re ahead of Hollywood, pero hindi siya masyadong napapansin.”
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To ignore the wealth of talent within the Pinoy action genre these days is perhaps to keep ourselves from capitalizing on what could make Filipino entertainment truly worth its weight in the box office (or more accurately on a streaming platform). Just this year, director Martika Ramirez Escobar delighted audiences all over the world with the surreal action-comedy “Leonor Will Never Die,” about a retired screenwriter who becomes the star of her unfinished script, tapping on the metaphysical side of action films. “Leonor” is Escobar’s directorial debut. Filmmaker Erik Matti is one of the few able to push the genre forward, with the imaginative aswang thriller “Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles” in 2012, the Anne Curtis-starrer “Buy Bust” in 2018 (a sequel of which is reportedly in the works), and “On the Job,” which was so popular that it spawned a sequel that was serialized on HBO GO. The Metro Manila Film Festival regularly includes at least one action flick — the 2011 biographical caper “Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story” won 11 awards that year, including Best Picture and Best Director. On Vivamax, Viva Films’ own streaming platform, there have been several genre-bending action titles: “Adarna Gang” directed by Jon Red is a inspired by the lore of “Ibong Adarna,” while “Pabuya” is described as a “sexy action thriller” about a gang leader, his old flame, and a tempting bounty hanging over his head.
“To ignore the wealth of talent within the Pinoy action genre these days is perhaps to keep ourselves from capitalizing on what could make Filipino entertainment truly worth its weight in the box office.”
However, on a wider scale, local productions choose not to fund such a labor and capital-intensive endeavor.
“Number one, budget is something very major about it. It’s expensive to do action. Like, one sequence of action can be two or three days. But a drama, you can take eight to 12 [scenes] in a day. It’s very expensive,” Ong says. “Number two, there’s not a lot of action directors in the Philippines, especially those who are adept in the modern way of doing action. The producers would rather produce a drama or rom-com that would make the money come in faster.”
Our film and television industries have no shortage of struggles. The cultural dominance of much larger economies and the lack of government support lends little to the cause; but the talent is most certainly there. In exploring the challenges as well as the creativity inspired by these limitations, we merely open up the long conversation we ought to have about Pinoy action films, and the sustainability of producing them. It might pay off to capitalize that which makes our cinema and television truly rich: from the socio-political stories that make us aware of our reality to the well-choreographed fight scenes inspired by our ancient martial arts — and perhaps gain world recognition along the way. Even the canned kick-punch sounds are a distinct Pinoy feature that remind us that sometimes, a true action blockbuster means embracing a little bit of camp. Whatever the future of the Pinoy action genre may be, it’s certainly a cultural treasure worth mining through, whether it be done through the restoration of important action films, or by supporting even more of them to be made in the future.
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