Handumanan (Remembrance)

Akihiro Sato, Jason Abalos

Akihiro Sato, the Brazilian model who doesn't speak Filipino, stretches to play the role of... a Brazilian model who doesn't speak Filipino. He's reasonably (or unreasonably) half-naked in early scenes -- such as dipping into a jacuzzi in black trunks -- until he discovers his face is used in the cover of a romance paperback, after which he's more clothed -- perhaps there's a connection. Next to him, the sullen Jason Abalos appears ungroomed and unscrubbed, but maybe that's part of his appeal, or lack of makeup budget. He's an auditor with a penchant for reading those paperbacks because it reminds him of his mother.

The two men are the unlikely love interests of the movie's heroine, Chin Chin Gutierrez, and for a while, it seems as if it would be an erotic journey; She's a romance novelist who doesn't have sex. But the movie doesn't want to go there. Instead, it rhapsodizes on the "art" of writing, as a matter of life and death, so much that the characters would rather internalize than connect with each other, even when they're the only three people on the beach. It's the kind of movie that relies on tiny sparks of human interaction to work, except it doesn't. Food is served many times, but no one even touches it. That's how removed it is.

GRADE: C

Related Links:
Akihiro Sato International Fansite
Akihiro Sato Official Website
Jason Abalos Photos
Negative Review by Oggs Cruz
Full Trailer