It all started as popcorn movie with friends, and now a blockbuster film hitting every corner of the world.
MANILA – adobo magazine presented an adobo Main Course with a VIP screening and insightful discussion with the people behind the blockbuster action thriller film BuyBust, headed by Director Erik Matti and its cast, moderated by Lilit Reyes on September 14, 2018 at the Cinema 6, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center Makati.
BuyBust is a daring movie which delves into a current controversial issue in the Philippines — the government’s war on drugs. It centers on PDEA cop Nina Manigan who, after witnessing the slaughter of her entire squad during a failed drug raid, joins another team led by Bernie Lacson. The new squad plunges in to a buy-bust operation aiming to capture major drug lord Biggie Chen in the city’s most dangerous slum. As the plan goes severely awry, Nina and her squad found themselves trapped in an endless maze, caught in between brutal drug gangs and hordes of bloodthirsty citizens, leaving them no option but to fight their way out.
Despite what’s clearly obvious and fictional in the movie, the netizens still supported and watched the film even with its gore and bloodshed scenes.
Director Erik Matti, of the blockbuster film “BuyBust”
A panel discussion was led by Lilit Reyes together with Director Erik Matti and its cast. Beforehand, Matti created blockbuster films already from Honor thy Father (2015) and On the Job (2013). Reyes asked Matti the passion to bar the genre and bring back action films, “Well it started really as a popcorn movie, until we went to productions – war on drugs started.” The film was accompanied by a PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) officer to guide them through an experts POV especially from the last scene of Arjo Atayde and Anne Curtis, “It was all coming from our PDEA consultant who wasn’t protective of the environment of the film – from the words of Biggie Chen (Arjo Atayde) were taken from stories that he told us about the war on drugs,”.
American-born Filipino mixed martial artist and the person behind the role Rico Yatco, Brandon Vera
For Brandon Vera, who played the role Rico Yatco, joining the exhausting movie shared what was the difference between a new different arena of his fighting career, “I would say the stress, the stress of being on set is easy for me. As an actor I just listen to what they are telling me. If somebody messes up, we’ll get through again to the set. No matter how many times we set, we keep on resetting. When I am fighting one on one, I’m representing the world on my shoulder, it’s just me. It’s more stressful than being an artist than a martial arts champion.”
Film score composer, Erwin Romulo
A film score composer, Erwin Romulo talked about the soundtrack used, which he thinks would best resonate the Philippines. “Oras Na by Coritha” was released in 1980 and was sung and used every time there’s a rally wayback. The song best describes the nation, “The song fits it up. It’s not a despairing song, the movie have had enough despair. It has a good run, but also optimistic.”
Roma Regala, one of the production team to stage the setup of “BuyBust”
The movie BuyBust brought another notch because of the squatter setting. Roma Regala and Mike Espanol are behind the realistic setup of the movie. “Mahaba yung process ng designing, inspirations, drawings, floorplans, gumawa pa ng 3D. After na ‘to ng makakuha kami ng location”, Roma Regala said.
Stand up comedian and host Alex Calleja
Alex Calleja also shared his experience for the movie. Alex played the role of Teban, PDEA’s supposed agent who lead them towards the suspect Biggie Chen. “Sa totoo lang, anybody can do this, pero napili pa din ako tapos na-guide naman ako ni Direk.”.
“It feels like a blessing in disguise diba? Like, ang hirap talaga ng trabaho but when you finished and you sit back and watch everybody appreciate it and you understand the time it took…ang ganda talaga, ang saya and I don’t know how to describe it even in English, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just a blessing talaga,” Brandon Vera said.
But making the movie is not without a struggle. Direk Erik Matti admits, it was one of his most difficult endeavors. He says, the challenge its to be able to engage the interest of the Filipino taste, with a film that would engage the current status and chaos of the country. “It’s really hard…number one, we’ve been making Filipino movies and of course we know our local audience but it’s really hard to penetrate the international market where people would want to see your film so we were excited when there were interested territories that wanted to get Buybust. It started with North America and we were happy and then eventually we moved on to other countries and of course masaya kami.”
Erik Matti is currently doing the On the Job 2 and the pre-production of Darna as well. BuyBust will still be seen in Japan and New Zealand according Matti. The film BuyBust will be shown in France Film Festival, L’Etrange Festival and Sitges Festival in Spain.
The BuyBust adobo VIP screening was organized by adobo magazine, in cooperation with Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), Reality Entertainment, and VIVA Films. Sponsored by Jollibee, Hit Productions, and Ace Saatchi & Saatchi. Event Partners, Heineken, Don Papa Rum, and Photoman. Media Partners, BusinessMirror, The Philippine Star, Manila Bulletin, WhenInManila, Wish 107.5, and WNOT.com (What’s New Out There).
