In any case, I finally got around to reviewing Feng Shui... here goes nothing...SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Feng Shui
May inuwi si Nanay, kalamay, inanay...
Kris Aquino headlines this Chito Rono film, which was a validly great attempt at capturing the feel of the subtle Asian horror film that relies on leaving things to the imagination instead of inducing out and out terror from the viewers.
The film starts off with Kris (So sue me. I forgot her character’s name.) riding a bus, and then picking up a Chinese lucky charm, a bangwa, when one of the passengers disembarks and leaves it behind. Unbeknownst to her, this charm possesses great power. It will bestow great luck to the owner, at the price of the soul of anyone else who would see themselves when looking into the charm's mirror.
Soon enough, Kris is deluged with good luck, although her husband, Inton (Jay Manalo.), was beginning to see his old girlfriend again behind her back. Trouble brews, as people around Kris mysteriously die one by one. First, there was the guy who left the charm in the bus, who got run over by a Rabbit bus. Second, was the owner of the bakery she frequents, who died of leptospirosis. Third, her tricycle service driver, who got stabbed in a cockpit. As each mysterious death occurred, she realized an uncanny coincidence relating to their Chinese zodiac. The three people who died were year of the Rabbit, Rat, and Rooster, respectively.
At this point, Kris was beginning to figure out something was amiss between her good luck and the deaths of the people around her. It wasn't long before she and her friends found out about the curse of the charm, and what made things worse for them was that they had no idea how to break the curse. Breaking the charm would simply mean making her no longer immune to the curse. To compound the matter, one of her friends, played by Lotlot de Leon, already looked into the charm.
Kris approaches the wife of the man who left the charm with her, who turned out to be the previous owner (Cherry Pie Picache.). Apparently, she still wanted the charm, and was willing to give anything to have it back. She didn't care about the souls it took for her to achieve it. She just wanted it back.
By now, Kris was in a tizzy. Strange things have been happening at her house, and it was becoming clear that the souls that were taken by the charm were one by one inhabiting the house. One of the security guards caught these spectral inhabitants on film, before he was killed by a snakebite. He was year of the Snake.
In desperation, she and her friends turn to a soothsayer. This soothsayer told them about the legend of Lotus Foot, who was a young Chinese girl who was burned to death by her servants during the revolution in China. In her rage, she died holding the charm, and swore by it that whomever would see themselves in the charm's mirror would forfeit their soul to her. It took some time, but the way to break the curse became painfully clear: refuse any good luck Kris Aquino runs into, then immediately break the charm.
Unfortunately, circumstances prevented her from doing that, and even more unfortunately, the “ingenuity” of the film went downhill slightly before that point.
For instance, Lotlot de Leon, being year of the Horse in the story, died by being thrown off the second floor of her house onto a pile of Red Horse beer bottles. This was really shameless product placement, and was almost as bad as the numerous Chunkee Corned Beef placements throughout the film.
Anyways, the next good luck Kris Aquino ran into was that she luckily shared the same blood type with her son's best friend, who was dying because he got involved in an accident. This led to her wanting to warn Inton about his impending death, and Inton's fear of being confronted led him to be killed by his mistress' estranged husband, Louie. Louie sports a bulldog tattoo. Guess what year both Inton and Dina (The mistress, played by Jenny Miller.) were...
The next good luck Kris Aquino ran into was that she was luckily recognized by Louie when he was about to shoot her. Because he felt an affinity for Kris since the both of them were cheated on by their respective spouses, he instead committed suicide. Obviously, Kris couldn't turn that good luck down...
Meanwhile, Thelma, her fortune teller friend, was trying to take Kris' children somewhere safe. Thelma and Kris' son were both born in the year of the Rooster. Kris' daughter was born in the year of the Cow. Guess what was in front of their car. That's right. A truck carrying a cow and chickens. It gets lamer and lamer...
Anyways, Kris finally comes home, and is approached by the previous owner's lawyer, and he asked for the charm in exchange for five million pesos. Kris turns it down, and the lawyer doubles it. Kris adamantly refuses, then proceeds to break the charm. Right then and there, Thelma and the children arrive. Kris is overjoyed to see them, and then while Thelma and Kris were talking, her children bring out a surprise for her. It was Inton. Apparently, all of them already died, and Kris, having broken the charm after an event that was not good luck (She knew the owner wanted it back so bad.), was no longer immune to the curse. The next good luck she encountered was the “return” of her children, and this meant her soul will be the tradeoff for this.
I think that last part was a cheat, and finally, they gave up on using the Chinese Zodiac at this point, as Kris was year of the Tiger, and there were no tigers involved at this point. I just found the Bulldog and the Red Horse deaths a wee bit too much of a stretch, though Dominique pointed out that the ironing board is sometimes called a “horse” in the vernacular, though that wasn't how Lotlot died. Still, the creepy look of Lotus Foot and the part where Lotlot saw her own dead self in Lotus Foot's hands before she herself was finally killed was simply marvelous. Oh, well...
Scary film? Yes. Unfortunately, the subtlety completely disappeared towards the end of the film, with all the ghosts slowly being more blatant in presencing, which I believe ruined the film's effect, since the creepiness disappeared, and in its place stood lame attempts to blatantly scare the audience...
In spite of this shortcoming, I must say that I loved this film a lot. I think it's actually worth catching a second time, if only for the twist ending that seemed to be cheating on its own rules...
Marcelle's “Fun” Evaluation: B+
Marcelle's “Critical” Evaluation: B+
.:Kathy's Letter Attempt:.
Got a letter from April yesterday. But her letter pales in comparison to this one...
Dear Marcelle, Just Always Pray At Night. :) o Stay A Cheery, Happy Amigo. ;) I wish you all the best in the world. Great work with the fire-spinning. Super proud of what you can do now. Looking forward to seeing you become the King of Wrap. (Yo! Yo! Yo! Kel in da haaaaauuusssss!!! ) :)) Hope you appreciate this letter. Advanced happy birthday, take care. And don't play with the birthday candles.... :o) -Kathy
And yeah, my special call still stands, guys... hope you guys can grant this poor widdle jabroni's wish... :D
.:Manic Monday:.
I finally finished my paper for Methods of Research. Yay. Took me quite a lot of effort to do, but there you go. I had to skip WAVE boardwork just to make sure I finished it on time... it was eighteen or nineteen pages long, I believe. Oh, well...
In any case, it was my 59th Monthsary with Grace, and we met up in the afternoon in Galleria. I was test driving my deck again, and considering the possibility of making the base color blue instead of white... oh, well. I'll think about it some more. My matches with Yol proved interesting though, as the new deck was severely well-equipped against those creature-based decks...
Grace and I went hunting for the stuff I'd need to make a deckbox like that of the guy I was playing against in Neutral Grounds. We went to Megamall and started buying the stuff, and it was interesting how that turned out. Apparently, I needed quite a few things to do it, and it looked good, all the same. For the most part, though, we just had fun talking with one another. She was laughing over the Sunday incident, though. The age level differentials were showing...
Eventually, we just had a short dinner at Aling Banang's, and that dinner was special, considering how long it's been since we last ate there. The food is still as good as ever... heh.
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