‘Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story’: Worth the pain

At first blush, “Manila Kingpin: The Story of Asiong Salonga” is a film about death.  Mourners swarm around a coffin in a movie Asiong (E.R. Ejercito) and wife Fidela (Carla Abelllana) are watching.  Asiong tells Fidela he wants a funeral march just like the one they are watching.

It’s so un-Christmasy for a Metro Manila Filmfest entry shown during the longest holiday season of the year.  But you don’t have to blink twice to discover that its theme is as Christmasy as the traditional family noche buena that marks this season.

“Manila Kingpin: The Story of Asiong Salonga” is all about Tondo’s notorious gang leader who lived by the gun and died by the gun from 1924 to 1951. 

But it’s also about a man whose love for his policeman-brother (played by Phillip Salvador) made him order his men to hold their fire in a shoot-out with the cops.
 
It’s also about the notorious Asiong sneaking out of Muntinlupa to grieve on his mother’s grave.

And oh yes, it’s also about a cop surrendering his pistol to the chief of police because he can’t join a mission to hunt and arrest his kid brother.

The black-and-white scenes, high-waist look and balloon skirts may belong to a bygone era.   But the favor seeking come election time does not.

Leaders of rival groups Nationalista and Liberal Party court Asiong’s favor.  But he is no “balimbing.”  He literally and figuratively sticks to his guns.  He remains a Liberal Party loyalist.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of many of our political figures today.

Will some of the politicians who see the film cry “ouch” with a capital O?  Let’s hope so.

Let’s also hope friends who betray a comrade the way Erning (Baron Geisler) did will feel the fire that burned and roasted the gang member to death.

Death as a recurring theme came in two forms: the bloody, icky kind and its opposite: implied but felt oh-so-deeply.  It’s the second one that hits like a bullet straight to the heart.

Imagination goes into overdrive as mournful music plays while gang members, their rifles muffled, their faces grim, fire bullets in a killing spree.

The mind pictures squirming bodies and dismembered limbs as blood splatters on a fallen bicycle wheel.    Words fail when pictures tell the whole story.

Words fail once more when E.R. twitches and turns on the cold, bloodied floor of his prison cell after surviving a fight with a fellow inmate.

The blank stare, the doggone look are enough.  The agony is something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

Asiong’s nemesis, Totoy Golem (John Regala) has the snickering look and the shifty eyes of a traitor. The years have not diminished the comebacking actor’s talent at all.

It is E.R. who is a revelation.  The Laguna governor wears pain like second skin.

He has a way of describing it, “Parang nasaniban (ako).”

Of course, he’s exaggerating. But if that’s how he best describes the intensity of his emotions – no matter how eerie it sounds -- so be it.

After all, it could be the same intensity that drove cinematographer Carlo Mendoza to do those scenes that sparkled with inspiration: the river shining with ethereal light, raindrops falling on a combative Asiong’s silhouette, etc. The list could go on and on.

Despite all the delays and controversies it went through, “Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga” story deserves the moveigoers’ precious time. The Cinema Evaluation Board is right. The film is rated A.