Review: Ang Bagong Dugo

Even as a Filipino, I'm not particularly fond of films that my country is pouring out in the past years, but whenever it is an action film though, I still give it a chance because it used to be one of the most entertaining genres in Pinoy films. Upon seeing the trailer for this film, the cast got me intrigued and so did the story, and in effect I was cautiously optimistic. Is the film a return to form on action films or is it a failed attempt at an action flick? Click the jump and check out my thoughts.

Synopsis:

Ang Bagong Dugo is an action-packed crime drama Pinoy film that tells a story of a young man named Anong (Joem Bascon) who yearns to seek revenge on the unjustly murder case of his father. In his search, blood will shed and truth shall be revealed.

Action is a dying genre in Philippine cinema because nowadays people clamor for either slapstick humor or totally unbelievable romantic films. With this film, I got to see what is probably the better action films I've seen in Philippine cinema in quite a long time. Let's talk about the plot first, the plot was actually pretty solid because it keeps on you on guessing what will happen next and I like that in a film because it is a way for the film to not talk down to its audience thus revealing the many twists and turns that this film is showing. Having said that though, those twists and turns can also be a bad thing (more on that later).

One of the strongest suits of the plot too is the recurring sub-plots of it because it didn't made the film feel bloated instead it helped the film to have more developed and rounded story. Another strong point of the plot is that even though all these subplots appear throughout the film, it still managed to stay on course on what this film really want to achieve.

The film is headlined by lots of veteran actors and truly is one of the best in their crafts but the star of the film is Joem Bascon, an actor who is mostly known in small or supporting characters, this is his first leading film (if memory serves right). As for Bascon's performance, he was damn good in this one, he truly got out of his shell and was able to showcase of how great of an actor he really is. What I really liked in his performance though is the fact that he was able to stand his ground with this great actors, it really did left a mark on his performance for me. Speaking of the veteran actors, this film was also starred by the likes of Mark Gil, Roi Vinzon, Monsour Del Rosario, Alma Concepcion, Efren Reyes Jr. and Dick Israel. Even with the amount of screen time they have, all of their performances was great because we got to see why they are so good at what they do. Every single time that they appear on screen, it's just so charismatic and so powerful, it may end up as one of the strongest suits of the film for me.

Along with these veteran actors though are some of the relatively newcomers like Ian Ignacio and Alexis Navarro. Ignacio was good enough with the material he was given, the problem with him though is he lacks a charisma which makes it kinda hard for him keep up whenever he's on screen with the veteran actors I mentioned above. As for Alexis Navarro though, in my opinion she was the weakest link in terms of the performances present in the film because to be blunt, her performance was a bit wooden and stale, I will say this though, she was still able to show off some emotions at some moments of the film which was a good sign in my opinion and she was great to look at.

Now that we got most of the major stuff out of the way, let's now talk about the technical aspects of the film. This is where the film falls a bit short for me, starting with the cinematography, I'll say this, it was very good, beutiful to be exact but my problem with it is the color palette of the film because at times it felt like I was watching a TV movie which isn't a bad thing but considering that this is a theatrical film, it kinda took me out of the experience in terms of the visual style. Another aspect that I wasn't a fond of was the sound mixing/editing and the scores used because sometimes the score felt off with the scenes they were going for and the sound mixing/editing felt weak or there's too much noise present to it. Despite my problem with the technical aspects though, these were just minor problems.

Lastly, let's talk about Iglesias' direction. Val Iglesias is one of the most renowned stunt-directors in the Philippines but this is not his debut film. Iglesias definitely delivered on the action side of the film because it was reminiscent of the action stunts present in the past films while he also added his own flavor to the action and it was memorable and truly a blood pumping action. He also did a great job on the pacing of the film because it never felt dragging and it didn't feel fast.

I have one problem with his direction though and it was the usage of the flashbacks. Normally, I'm a fan of flashbacks but in this film it was just overdone, I liked it the first two times it was used but it just went on and on and it felt a repetitive and later on just felt like a gimmick. Kudos to his direction though because as shown in the film, it was fearless and Iglesias never backed down on showing how violent and political the film is.

Overall:
This film had balls (figuratively and literally) because it never stopped on showing shocking revelations and suspenseful action. It was also great to see these amazing actors on screen again and to see Joem Bascon play a role he's not accustomed to was also good because he was able to show that he's capable of doing different type of roles. In conclusion, this is a very good action film and it is a breath of fresh air from all of the bad films that have been released in Philippine cinema.

Grade:

Favorite lines:
I don't remember much from the lines of the actors but I do love it when I hear them cuss, it was awesome.