Kontra Madiago (Bembol Roca) is a former rebel leader who has since
become a disillusioned serialkiller though who sees himself on a mission,
a mission to annihilate evil in Manila - even though he is very much aware
of teh fact that he will probably never succeed. In his spare time, he
follows a woman around, Ligaya Paraiso (Ella Cortez), who represents
innocence for him, but he never lets her know that he's following her.
Eventually he catches up with her - and finds her the centerpiece of a
gangbang - which is when he immediately kills everyone on site, including
her ... but actually, Ligaya wasn't Ligaya at all, the real Ligaya, a girl
from Kontra's village, has died many years ago, and since then he has just
been looking for other women to replace her - and maybe the whole gangbang
and murder only happened in Kontra's head as well. In the end, Kontra
sees himself cornered by religious fanatics flagellating themselves - but
then again, this might also be a product of his imagination, just like
everything else ... Serial killer movies have long been a
staple of East Asian cinema and cinema in general, but Manila in the
Fangs of Darkness - a semi sequel to Lino Brocka's 1975 film Manila
in the Claws of Neon/Manila in the Claws of Light, also
starring Bembol Roca - is closer in style and in storytelling techniques
to JEan-Luc Godard than to your usual genre fare. So do expect some jumpy
editing, scenes without audible dialogue but with subtitles, occasionally
intentionally unsynchronized sound and image, the associative inclusion of
scenes from other movies (first and foremost Manila in the Claws of
Neon) and a not quite linear storyline. And the outcome is weird,
that's for sure, but also fascinating, a very unique portrait of Manila,
and an original piece of genre cinema. Well worth a look.
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