Sine ni FPJ
On the occasion of Da King’s birth anniversary
August 20 Mon (@Videotheque)
1:30 Daigdig Ko’y Ikaw
4 p.m. Pilipinas kong Mahal
6:30 p.m. Perlas ng Silangan

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PILIPINAS KONG MAHAL

Directed by: Efren Reyes Sr.

Starring: Fernando Poe Jr., Susan Roces, Noval Villa, Oscar Keesee, Vic Silayan, Lito Anzures, Vic Uematsu

Synopsis: Gigantic in every aspect, the great war epic, filmed in color, won the FAMAS best photography statuette. It is the second movie of FPJ and Susan Roces after ‘Ang Daigdig Ko’y Ikaw.’

December 8 dawns with the announcement of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,  Keesee reassures his family that America will pulverize the Nipponese attackers. When the Japanese land, he states that the American will be back, triumphant, in three months’ time.His optimism is not shared by his daughter, who spends her time moping about the fate  of her sweetheart, Fernando Poe, Jr., on the battlefield.  She should not have worried.  Poe Jr., as everybody knows, is invincible, and Pilipinas Kong Mahal shows some of the best proofs of this invulnerability.Before the onslaught of determined Japanese attackers, Poe Jr. is wounded, it is true, but  only ever so slightly, in the exact spot where Jesus was nailed by the palm on the cross — to which crucified figure Director Efren Reyes, in a moment of over-devotion to clever cinematics, bluntly and forcibly cuts to go back to the pretty face of Susan praying.Captive in a POW camp, he proposes a mass escape in loud stentorian tones that are a surprise at being inaudible to the Japanese guards.  Together with Lito Anzures, who gives the semblance of a soldier fighting and fearing for his life, wearying of it and taking heart because of it, he escapes unscathed beneath a hail of high-powered bullets from the more advantageously situated Japanese sentries.  Wonder of wonders still, the supposedly starving and diseased prisoners of war easily capture an arsenal of firearms, and wipe out the whole garrison force before disappearing into the jungle to become brave guerrillas!

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