Bagong Hari (The New King, Mario O'Hara, 1986)

King of pain

Mario O'Hara's Bagong Hari (The New King) was released in early 1986, a singular moment in Philippine history. It was produced and released during the final days of the Marcos regime, when the dictator's hold on things was seriously weakened (though few realized just how much), and the level of ferment was at an unprecedented high-- was at a level not seen since Marcos declared Martial Law fourteen years before. It was also-- though few knew it then-- the final days of what we might call the '70s and '80s golden age of Philippine cinema, a period that I believe started with Lino Brocka's Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Weighed and Found Wanting, 1974) and continued past the end of the decade with Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye, 1981) and Himala (Miracle, 1982).

The 1983 assassination of Marcos' political opponent Ninoy Aquino threw the economy into chaos and brought anti-Marcos sentiment out in the open, long-simmering emotions the dictator struggled to staunch but never managed to stop. Partly as a result of his troubles, partly as a way to appease people bread-and-circus style (at the same time appearing more liberal) Marcos eased censorship restrictions. Films with scenes of graphic sex and violence bloomed; people felt it was a sign of the times-- the end of the world as they knew it-- and profound change was imminent, maybe desired.

One of the most intense expressions of this sentiment was Peque Gallaga's Scorpio Nights (1985), about a housewife downstairs and a college student upstairs having an affair, practically under the nose of her security-guard husband. The allegory was clear-- youth and woman defying authority figure for sex-- but it was the sex that sparked the audience's imagination; staged and choreographed like action sequences, the coupling was imaginative, passionate, thrilling, like nothing Filipinos have ever seen before or since.

But if Scorpio Nights unveiled the people's hunger for sexual rebellion, Bagong Hari captured the regime's corruption and systemic use of violence, our need (hunger if you like) for a hero to respond; if in effect Scorpio Nights was Philippine cinema's ultimate statement on sex, Bagong Hari was that same cinema's ultimate statement on violence. But while Scorpio was a boxoffice hit Bagong Hari was a financial failure-- the film, meant for the 1985 Metro Manila Film Festival, was denied entry due to censorship issues, and received an early 1986 release instead with little publicity (I do remember a quarter-page news ad featuring Addon (Dan Alvaro) in cruciform pose, wearing a barbed-wire crown on his head). A pity, because O'Hara had meant it to be popular (albeit dark) entertainment that commented on Philippine politics at the time-- or, for that matter, all times.

The setting is a powerful unspecified province (Metro Manila); the governess (the late Elvira Manahan doing an elegant version of Imelda Marcos) is accused of overspending on construction of a palatial library (actually the Manila Film Center). Her rival in the coming elections is Mayor Aguila (filmmaker Celso Ad. Castillo in a witty villain role), an actor-turned-politician with a reputation for being an intellectual featherweight (hello Joseph Estrada).

Caught in between is Addon Labrador (Dan Alvaro), son of Isagani Labrador (Robert Arevalo), Mayor Aguila's right-hand man. Addon doesn't share in his father's political success (his mother left Isagani years before, presumably for his womanizing) but does share one of his father's talents-- he's a gifted killer adept at all weapons, including the balisong (butterfly knife).

Violence is almost a given during election season in the Philippines (if anything the number of incidents has increased); more, violence is one of the oldest means of interaction between men, with the skilled fighter revered, worshipped, granted larger-than-life status. O'Hara acknowledges this in his opening, a hand-to-hand duel between two men on a beach. Fists crunch into bone, heels ground into faces, faces in turn are thrust into wet sand; O'Hara keeps the body parts in giant closeup then freezes the image, in part to distance us from the pain in part to aestheticize the violence. Grunts, groans, howls suggest the punishment being applied behind the frozen frame; duel ends with the abrupt snap of a spinal cord. Reasons for the clash are hinted at: prize money, a gintong balisong (golden butterfly knife), the title of hari (king)). Call the sequence the opening chord in a symphony of brutality.

The film is a collection of fight sequences. The first on the beach had an existential quality (we fight, therefore we are); the second happens along the Pasig River, and starts with Addon in a urinal (a makeshift cubicle hanging precariously from the riverbank) being attacked by three men; he jumps up a tilted truck bed (one thinks of Carol Reed only here it's the flooring that's askew), runs across a series of shanty roofs (long shot of corrugated horizon as the figures skip and leap and collide) to finally end (nice symmetry) in another overhanging urinal, all to the accompaniment of a tender guitar melody. The skirmish is hardly gratuitous, either; Addon is being auditioned, presumably for a bigger battle.

The faceoff takes place at the arenalike Greek Theater at the National Mental Hospital. Addon has been offered fifty thousand pesos (huge sum to Filipinos, a mere two thousand dollars to Americans) to face the combatant we saw earlier (Ruel Vernal). They begin with hand-to-hand, continue with meathooks ("What's this?" Addon asks; "use it," he's told), proceed with the balisong; high up on bleachers the rich place bets on the outcome.

It's O'Hara at his most baroque: two men in a life-or-death struggle for the amusement of the upper classes; the arena setting and progression of weapons (from fists to meathooks to balisong) reinforces the gladiatorial feel. O'Hara often perches the camera on the upper steps looking down; the image brings to mind several ideas: that Dante's inferno was also shaped like a bowl; that freedom for the combatants is found outwards and upwards, past the camera (a fact underlined when Addon at one point starts to walk out and is stopped by the sound of a man racking his M16 rifle). Later the reigning king swings a torch at Addon, and O'Hara shoots the two through the spilled flames, as if they were already in hell, burning.

The film goes on to chronicle how Addon is forced to commit his most heinous killing, and how his attempts at retribution initiates a cycle of escalating mayhem that leaves few people standing.

The cast of characters includes Addon's former girlfriend Rina (gorgeous full-bodied Carmi Martin, tough of heart and foul of mouth), her present lover Rex, the governess' son (Joel Torre in a hilariously swaggering parody of Bongbong Marcos), and the little girl who adores Addon, and is in many ways the film's mediating viewpoint (we are that little girl, looking up to her hero). The film collects details distinct to everyday Manila life: the children perched atop bridges snaking down wire loops to hook valuables-- shoes, radios-- from the barges gliding underneath; the policeman who visits a crime scene by renting a tricycle; the epic beer-drinking contest in a bamboo shack. It catalogues the even more varied ways violence affects our all-too-human flesh, from an impromptu razorblade carving to blowtorched flesh to a hospital patient's fresh stitches ripping (while evading her pursuers) to a woman's shrieking attempts to breathe when shot in the chest.

O'Hara keeps all elements-- the characters, the political allusions, the unique Manila details, the brilliantly staged action-- juggling in the air to make an interesting (if debatable) point: if violent revolution ever needed justification the political circumstances surrounding the Philippines from the years '83 to '86 should be as good as any. And if a man were to initiate such a revolt O'Hara presents a rough sketch of one worthy candidate: quiet, courteous, gallant to women and children, kindhearted but skilled at dealing death. A champion, in short.

O'Hara's Addon Labrador is no Mike Hammer, looking for the Great Whatzit in Kiss Me Deadly or Hank Quinlan planting evidence to catch his quarry in Touch of Evil-- but then O'Hara probably felt that the times didn't call for such brutes. A man taking on the Philippine political establishment would not have the energy for self-doubt introspection cynicism, elements that would only add complication to an already complex plot. The film pits Addon against the world, pits classic Filipino virtues (virtues which the film itself possesses) against the vast perversion that is the Philippines today. It's a ray of hope grounded in reality, aspiring to the (somewhat) fantastic, meant to encourage us in our despair.

Bagong Hari is noir, its protagonists struggling in a hostile urban landscape; because it presents such a range of characters-- from the highest offices of power to the humblest river rat-- dominating (or being dominated by) others, I'd say the film belongs to a special subset of epic noir that includes Johnnie To's Election films and Curtis Hanson's 1997 L.A. Confidential (I prefer O'Hara's more modest but stranger and (I believe) visually richer work but that's me).

Despite being a boxoffice failure the film managed to impress the handful of people-- me, included-- who caught it on its brief commercial run. And it has left a mark-- many an action film since has featured balisongs and meat hooks and gladiator combat, has borrowed characters and incidents from recent Philippine history. Mentor and frequent collaborator Lino Brocka did if not a remake then a rather pallid reworking: Gumapang Ka sa Lusak (Dirty Affair, 1990), with Christopher De Leon as the Addon character and Charo Santos as the Imelda Marcos figure.

A final note: partly as a result of its commercial failure all prints of Bagong Hari have since been lost (the producer himself was looking for a copy), and only a few fugitive video recordings remain. The loss is more than a pity, it's a tragedy; that Philippine cinema was capable of this, arguably the finest Filipino action film ever made and the last great film from an important period in Filipino filmmaking-- is enough to make one weep.

2.21.10