Faded Boxers

I discovered that one of my old DVD rental places had slashed their prices and beefed up their selection so I decided to rent the shit out of the place for Holy Week since I’d be stuck home.

One of the titles I picked up was this movie The Debut, which I first heard about five years ago when the Fil-Am director was in the country trying to get some local actors to sign on for this independent project. Immediately, I was intrigued by the idea: A feature length film about the Filipino-American experience told through the eyes of a Filipino who is more familiar with Western culture than his own. But seeing as how long it’s going to be before the filmmakers are finished with the movie, I filed it under my “you should look it up in the future” and forgot all about it.

Since five years have passed when I saw this on the shelf for rent, I was less than enthusiastic to see how it all turned out. Fortunately, nothing else caught my eye that day and I decided to check it out.

My verdict? It was thoroughly enjoyable. So enjoyable in fact, I immediately watched it again after finishing it for the first time. I guess it’s a testament to how hungry I am for some Hollywood representation that I loved it from beginning to end. But the novelty can only carry the movie so far.

Fortunately, the movie had a lot more going for it than that. It had an awesome cast, very likeable and belieavable characters; and a script that although becomes overindulgent at times, is quite excellent.

Trivia: If you’re familiar with Spielberg’s Hook, you might recognize the lead actor. He was Rufio in Hook, which was a big plus because I thought that role was totally badass.

I’d like to think that not only Filipinos will be able to relate to this film because its plot draws heavily from every other story about how different generations of a certain ethnic group has dealt with living in America and how it affects their cultural identity (The Joy Luck Club, Spanglish and Real Women Have Curves come to mind).

I could probably list everything I loved about it, but it would invariably mislead the reader into thinking that this was the best movie in the universe when in fact it’s not. Bottomline is that it’s a very well made film that can be enjoyed by people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Also, it is because of this film that I have met my new object of obsession; Joy Bisco: