Pinoy Pulp

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I was fortunate enough to get a FREE ticket to the premiere screening of Peque Gallaga’s newest film, Pinoy Blonde by Unitel Pictures. That was about a week ago. Took me that long to finally decide if I liked the film. Now do I like the film? As of this writing, I still haven’t decided yet.

I’ve seen some of Peque Gallaga’s work before and I’ve grown to love them. Oro Plata Mata (1982), an episode in Shake Rattle and Roll (Manananggal, 1984), films co-directed with Lore Reyes Kid, Huwag Kang Susuko (1987), Isang Araw Walang Diyos (1989), and Shake Rattle and Roll 2, 3 and 4 (1990, 1991, 1992 respectively). Pinoy Blonde is quite different from all these films I’ve mentioned in the sense that it didn’t follow the norm that these films conformed to. I think it’s heavily influenced by by Quentin Tarantino’s movies though, like Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill (2003) and Kill Bill ver. 2.0 (2004). My fondness for these films does not carry on for the director though.

Anyway, the pseudo-intellectual banter, unusual camera work, cut-to animation sequences, the title graphics were all done very well and it seems that a lot of work has gone into the making of this film. It involved a lot of very talented and capable actors. I commend all the people involved in the making of this movie. But they could’ve done better. The people involved have already done a great job as it is. All I’m saying is they could’ve pushed it a bit further than where they’ve gone with it.

A lot of the stuff they did here has never been done before in Philippine Cinema. But Tarantino has done it before. We've know of and have seen Tarantino. So nothing's really new here except that its the first film to mimic Tarantino and Tarantino-esque film ideas. Like what they're tagline says, hindi typical Pinoy film on one hand but on another, it's a typical Tarantino-style film.