Miracle in Cell No. 7: The Sailor Moon bag

My beloved Linguistics adviser Mr. Louward Zubiri, who is an expert in negation, would always say, "If there is no negation in language, all means of communication will crash." Sometimes saying no leads you to the truth, and sometimes saying yes leads you to save your daughter.

My stomachache didn't stop me from watching the movie Miracle in Cell No. 7, which was recommended by my good friend Mark Borris Aldonza. At first I didn't know whether I was crying from my stomachache or from the movie itself. I couldn't laugh at the funny parts because my innards contract but I managed to finish the movie wiping tears from my eyes.

The movie revolves around an intellectually challenged father Yong-gu (Ryu Seung-Ryong) and his young daughter Yesung (So Won Kal). It was at first like the movie I am Sam where the father behaves in a childish manner and a daughter who simply loves his father for who he is. The conflict first began when Yesung's favorite Sailor Moon bag was already sold out in an exclusive store, where the last one was bought by the daughter of a powerful policeman in their place. The next day, the daughter of the policeman looked for Yesung's father and told him she found another store that sells the bag. However things took a turn for the worst when the child suddenly slipped through thin ice and a brick fell on her head, cracking her skull and ultimately killing her. Yesung's father, who at  the time was trying to resuscitate the dead child by conducting CPA, was found by an old woman and she had mistaken it for rape and murder. The police crowded and exaggerated the scene--they abused the intellectually challenged father and fooled him into confessing that he did rape and murder the child of the powerful policeman. 

He was given a lifetime sentence to jail, where he met a number of inmates who first alienated him for his fabricated crime case. He was able to gain their trust when one day the leader of the pack and gangster was attempted to be killed by another inmate and Yong-gu, dubbed 5438 (his prisoner number) saved his life. As the leader of his gang before he was jailed, Sin Bong-sik paid his thanks by doing whatever Yong-gu wants; that is, to see his daughter Yesung. Doing the impossible, the group was able to sneak out Yong-gu's daughter using the daily ration of bread in the prison cells. However they were not able to return his daughter, who was already living in an orphanage on time and she was able to stay and hide with them in Cell No. 7. They were found out by the police two days after and Yong-gu was sentenced to the isolation room as punishment.

Yesung, after the incident, did not eat and became pale and sickly in the orphanage. The head police chief visited her and realized that the child just wanted to be with his father. And so after taking a vacation leave, he presented another box of bread for Cell No. 7, only this time, Yesung was in place of the breads. The police chief and the guards allowed Yesung to stay with her father in the prison as long as she liked. The police chief, who was also saved by Yong-gu once when an inmate set fire in the prison, started to get curious with his case and re-investigated it. During Yesung's stay in the prison, the other inmates also questioned what really happened that afternoon when the daughter of the powerful policeman got killed. They were able to deduce that indeed it was not Yong-gu who killed the child, but the thin ice and the brick that cracked her skull. Yong-gu's trial was looming, and all of his friend-inmates started their work on prepping Yong-gu before he is presented in front of the judge. They did this with dedication until it was time for the trial. However, another conflict surfaced when the powerful policeman threatened Yong-gu that the same accident would happen to Yesung if he tells the judge that it was not his fault.

"Did you rape and kill the child using a brick?"

Silence. The prosecutor repeated the same question for the nth time.

"Did you rape and kill the child using a brick?"

"Yes I did. I did kill the child."

Everyone was shocked and Yesung cried beside her teacher and the chief policeman. Yong-gu was sentenced to death on December 23, and the inmates, the chief policeman and Yesung made the best of their time which already had a deadline. Yong-gu's friends could not accept the result of the trial and tried to escape Yong-gu by building a large hot air balloon during Christmas just before his death sentence, but failed when the rope that was attached to the balloon got stuck in the barbed wires of the prison.

Yesung, who was already under the care of the chief policeman, said her last goodbye to his father on December 23, and before both of them knew it, they could not accept what had happened, that Yong-gu would take the electric chair and that Yesung would grow up without his real father. 

Years later, Yesung, who was now a lawyer, re-investigated the case of his father and was able to successfully win the case even though his beloved father was already sentenced to death many years ago. 

I cried over how Yesung and Yong-gu changed the world of Yong-gu's fellow inmates--the leader-gangster was able to face his fear and took the courage to learn how to read and write. I also cried over how Yesung was able to borrow a phone from his friend and lent it to one of the inmates who just got his wife a baby girl. I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry when they were searching for a signal in Cell No. 7 and finally found it near the toilet.

 The first scene of the yellow balloon that got stuck in the barbed wire that the lawyer Yesung first saw and the last scene where the yellow balloon became the hot air balloon where Yong-gu and the young Yesung finally waved her goodbye was the most dramatic and spine-chilling images I've ever seen in movies so far. In the end, Yesung was able to forgive her father and bade her last goodbye.

Tramway Lunch with Family

I remembered in high school when my Journalism mentor Ms. Josephine Bonsol accompanied us to Tramway Garden Buffet in Timog Ave., Quezon City. It was my first time eating in a buffet and she prepped us on what to do once the hunger games start: 1) eat only little amounts per dish so you can taste every thing and 2) No drinks, no water so that you would not be full easily. I tried on the tomato pasta and just like a deliquent student who never listens to her teacher, I grabbed the big spoon and started putting large amounts of pasta into my plate, and my mentor went, "Sabing konti lang eh, sige sasaksakin kita diyan. Kumuha ka ng gulay." In the end I was able to eat most of the food but was not able to enjoy all of them because my mentor kept feeding me ghory vegebables and fish dishes.

This time my family went back to Tramway to celebrate the upcoming birthdays of my eldest sister Ate Nadine and our youngest Norman "Jigs" on September 3 and 9 respectively. As we walked to the restaurant I couldn't help but reminisce how the Journalism Club went and gobbled all the food that we wanted and I remembered how one of my classmates kept on teasing the waitresses to release their famous buko pandan. 

I have already learned how to eat in the buffet and I was able to eat every type of dish in the menu including the starters and the dessert without being too full.

 My eldest sister kept on grabbing the crunchy and tasty buchi while my youngest brother hoarded five big pieces of fresh maki and sushi in the counter. Jillian, my twin sister on the other hand had her own second serving of pansit. I loved the pichi pichi the most in the dessert and their signature crab and vegetable stew and tofu dish. 

Fried dumplings

Fish dish

Tofu dish

Sweet and sour pork

Tramway opens at 11am to 1pm for reservations and 1pm- 3pm for the second batch of reservations. Dinner starts at 6pm-8pm and 8pm to 10pm. Reservations can be made through their contact details. Adult buffet is P228 while Kids buffet ranges to P155 per head.

Steamed Siomai

tomatoes

boiled eggs

My minimalist dish

Maki and Sushi

The divine buko pandan

Specialty puto

Variety of breads

Pichi-pichi and maja

PIXAR @25: The Incredibles "No capes!"

Sometimes when our family becomes our weakness, it becomes our strength.

The movie's inpiration coined from director Brad Bird deeply moved me, as, for some reason I could relate to the concept of being torn between two things and thinking there's nothing left but to choose, when in fact I didn't have to at all.

With Pixar's release of The Incredibles (2004, directed by Brad Bird) came another touching but hilarious feature film for worldwide audiences of all ages. And for the first time our childhood characters were all clad as human beings in real superhero costumes. Another first time? They're a family of supers.

To complete the debut celebration, we witnessed how, surprisingly, heroes were despised after the innocent majority decided Mr. Incredible and the rest of the "mutants" destroyed enough of the city and they should stop their work. "Blending in" became the heroes' motto since then as they hid their identities and powers amongst millions of civilians.

As Bob Parr (aka Mr. Incredible, voiced by Craig Nelson) itched for some action and chased his old dream as a famed superhero, he didn't know the price he'd pay for--his family. Suddenly we witness it's not about saving the city we've long perceived in a hero routine, but saving his family instead.

It didn't take long for Bob to realize he could do what he loves without leaving his family behind, because in times when he's weak, his wife and children were his strength.

I was taught that in a family, it's about giving part of yourself to each one while also leaving a part for your self-growth. When both parties have fully accepted it, the concept of sacrifice and difficult decisions would hardly exist anymore.

"I can't lose you again!" This scene when Bob tried hard to say he wanted to work alone because he couldn't risk losing his family again always makes me cry, thinking how his family could weigh a thousand times more than his passion as a superhero.

I'll never forget Edna's (Brad Bird) comical advice as well, saying there should be no cape in Bob's new suit, given the tragic endings of most heroes because of their capes.

Maybe Bob's family did weigh a lot more than his life-long dream, because his wife and kids were already his dream come true.

THE INCREDIBLES Fact Sheet

1. The movie's inspiration came from director Brad Bird, sewing it from his experiences when he struggled to meet the demands of his family and his mounting opportunities in filmmaking.

2. The Incredibles is the very first Pixar feature film to use human cast, with the character's attitutdes adapted from Bird's family members (click here for detailed story).

3. Pixar created Universal Man, a highly "morphable" model capable of creating hundreds of unique background and side characters for the movie.

4. It reaped an Academy Award for Best Animated Film and Best Sound Editing. It also became Pixar's second highest grossing film with more than $629M in worldwide box office receipts.

PIXAR @25: Finding Nemo The shark bait

Curiosity is a booby trap we kids will always fall into.

My royal dream of exploring the ocean even without a swimming lesson finally came true with Pixar's legendary film Finding Nemo (2003, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich). Feeling the ocean waves from its deepest harbors and witnessing the realistic and colorful water creatures in the movie once made me think, "Hey I don't even need an oxygen tank to behold ocean's beauty!"

The Great Barrier Reef

What came with the package tour was an equally memorable lesson for us juvenile kids: that a father's overprotection is never an exaggeration.

We're represented by Nemo (Alexander Gould), a clown fish we and all other naïve fishes have thought of as funny because he's a clown fish. He's part of our club who's hypnotized by peer pressure, trapped by curiosity and imprisoned by his young and vulnerable mind, all preventing him to understand his father Marlin (Albert Brooks).

While the movie gave the final verdict of finding us all guilty, its theme focused more on the father's venture to the ends of the Pacific Ocean just to find his son. We saw how Marlin was too afraid to even leave the Great Barrier Reef, but when he helplessly saw his son pocketed by a diver, he left all his doubt behind and faced the sharks, the dangerous currents, the jellyfish clan, the whales, and the carnivorous birds.

Just like Nemo we'd tried to stow away from home not analyzing enough what we're doing. And when we got into trouble, it would be the only time when we'd miss them terribly and wished we could hide under mom's dress. Even if we'd only locked up in our room we'd hear our parents crying in the other room as well, realizing how they must hurt more whenever we close the door on them.

Finding Nemo taught me well how to understand and love my parents more, even at times when I think they worrry too much. 

I would always remember the forgetful but optimistic Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), the character my mentor Ms. Josephine Bonsol always equates herself to, and the scenes when Marlin and Dory were asking for directions from an amazing school of fish.

Somehow, it must be an incurable disease for us kids to always think we're Superheroes who can do everything and anything, but we'll only fall into booby traps all day long if we don't accept the truth that we're not.

FINDING NEMO Fact Sheet

1. A "wave" of personal experiences from director Andrew Stanton patched up the movie story. It was from his childhood memories of visiting his dentist with an aquarium, the ocean as his front yard and his parenting challenges that made Finding Nemo alive.

2. Nemo's Lucky Fin, according to Stanton, represents our limitations as kids that always make our parents worry too much about our safety.

The legendary Pixar Pinoy Animator: Nelson Bohol

3. The legendary tankscape of the aquarium raised the Filipino pride with lay-out artist Nelson Bohol, Pixar's Pinoy Animator and Supervising Production Artist. He also contributed his exceptional talent in the making of Cars, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and WALL-E.

4. Finding Nemo became the highest grossing animated film of all time, collecting over $850M in worldwide box office receipts.

5. It garnered an Oscar for Best Animated Film and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Sound Editing.

The "other side" of the white-haired woman

Chick Benetto: I saw her alive, right in front of my eyes.

Sometimes it only takes one day to fill up all the years you lost.


As part of the emotionally confused youth, I've always misunderstood my mother. At times I argue with her about the simplest things I suddenly realized were stupid enough. Ironically though I can never spit out the words she needs to hear from me, so she can tell her story and I can finally understand why she's like that.

"You can't be here."
"Why not?"
"Because you died."

True enough, nothing haunts like the things we don't say. Mitch Albom's For One More Day revolves around the ghost story of a mother and his son. Watching its adapted movie (produced by Oprah Winfrey), I once concluded it's a typical story of family love and the rest of its tragic conflicts. But taking it to the book, I realized it's how the story was told that made me want to love and understand my mother more.


Sharing the ghost story to his daughter, Charles "Chick" Benetto (Emmy Award-winning actor Michael Imperioli) recalled his tragic accident and attempt to commit suicide, and how he survived it with the help of his dead mother (Academy Award®-winning actress Ellen Burstyn) who appeared to him, in what most would say "inexplicable apparitions before death". For what appeared to be one ordinary day, Chick got to know his mother more and discovered a heartbreaking truth about the man he had loved more than his mom all through the years--his father and hero and baseball coach, having another family back then.

"Citizen of the World" Mitch Albom created a dramatic approach by letting Chick narrate his own story in the book; how he had struggled with the confusion of seeing his dead mother, and even inserted his mother's love notes to him during his first day in school and college. He had also recalled their rough relationship, divided in "Times My Mother Stood Up For Me" and "Times I Did Not Stand Up For My Mother".


The  story also observed how a child is culturally mislead when oriented with clashing principles, divorce,  family secrets and  big choices, thus making him carry the curse down to his own family and to himself. Chick had sought for his father's muted affection more, for his mother had given all her love too easily she didn't let him earn it. His father had also asked him he couldn't be both a mama's boy and a daddy's boy; he had to choose. 

Chick's ghost story portrayed the sad truth about today's parent-kid relationship as well. With social discrimation and entitlement disputes lurking in every corner of the world today, sons and daughters--as they grow up--are suddenly oriented with the culturally accepted norm of disregarding their time-worn parents. Less talk, less words, less calls, less visits.


It follows the worse truth that we youth make the least effort to understand our parents. Somehow it's very hard indeed, because the stained culture around us limit us to want to discover the "other side" of our parents. My mentor Ms. Josephine Bonsol has taught me to always try to understand my mom, because she may have frustrations when she was young that unconsciously made her pass it on to us.


In the end, what we kids don't realize and foresee are the days when we just want to hide under mom's dress and she's just not there. We don't foresee the days when we cannot taste their specialties anymore, when we can never use the word "mom" or "nanay" anymore.


What we don't clearly see, is the woman who's always going to save us at the end of the day.

The making of villains 101

The world creates its own enemy.


A father, a son and a heart transplant. Not one father would ever bear the thought of his child's death to happen long before his, especially when there's still a chance. John Q (Denzel Washington), unfortunate enough to lose health insurance, money, and eventually his son, was a desperate man in a desperate situation.


The making of villains doesn't only exist in Walt Disney movies. The script writer designs the ugliest violet-painted monster he can imagine, sets him up with the classic hero-beats-enemy scene, and his noble death is next to garbage, left with no legacy to be remembered as the selfish, unreasonable guy who justified the existence of heroes.

But such bad guys--sketched villains in the least--won't be too unreasonable if they don't have their own reasons to be. Desperation, survival, family, blind justice--reality proves it. Unlike any scripted existence, or story, John Q was forced to be unreasonable just so he could save his son.


The movie basically portrayed how far a loving father would go to prove his determination that he'll never bury his son. How a father is more than willing to lose his life so his son could live in return. And so the enemy had his own reasons nobody even cared to understand, because we didn't want to.

"I am not gonna bury my son;
my son's gonna bury me."

It also proved how the world creates its own enemy. Even though it's worse in the Philippines, the unattended health insurance of thousands of American citizens justifies enough why a lot of people want to bulldoze the White House and Malacañang Palace. If not for the fake HMO insurance company and his son's fake diagnoses over the years, John would've not even thought of buying a gun.


Hostage. Fear. Understanding. The movie portrayed a chunk of the science of human behavior as well, showing the nature of Stockholm Syndrome. Hostages primarily aquire such syndrome, where they develop great sympathy over their hostage taker. John Q's hostages had, for once, understood why he took such radical action, and even saved and defended him from the police.

John Q's hostages

To some extent, they're not really bad guys; they simply justify their unacceptable actions with the unacceptable situations they've been exposed to.

The Single Swan Feather

MOVIE REVIEW: THE JOY LUCK CLUB


We ask ourselves," What the hell's wrong with mom?" But then we don't really want to know the answer.


This anger and complete misunderstanding may not be our fault to some extent; it must be this sensitive puberty stage, where emotions violently clash and erupt in what we think are the most lethal moments of our life.


But at the end of the day, we stil have to face the question and discover the truth, because after all, accepting mom as she is, is accepting who we really are.

The Joy Luck  Club

Like June Woo in The Joy Luck Club (from the best-selling novel by Amy Tan), I also wondered why my mom pushed me too hard in my studies. She became too drunk from others' compliments whenever I get an award and a P20-gold-painted medal. I, on the other hand, became too drunk with studying so hard I wasn't able to distinguish whether mom was still pushing me or it already became a habit of mine to make a fool of myself.


I would remember how she nailed me to my seat, saying I couldn't play outside unless I memorize the computer keys. But then I would also remember how she made a twist and thrilled us (me and my sister) with a game about the letters of the alphabet. Whoever won got a horde of Pochi candies.


Looking back at her stories when she was younger, I realized she, too, got huge hopes for me. She had bitterly recalled how her mom (my lola) compared her to her beautiful cousin because the latter got better grades. She would always tell us how she wondered why lola always seemed so angry at her and used to scold her everytime.

But then she had bragged to lola what she had become, with daughters always at the top of their class. Then she would degrade her beautiful cousin to us who didn't even graduate from college back then.


I realized that's how she was brought up, and I could never blame her for that. I believe she never expects anything more from me; she only hopes I would live a life better than hers.

Sometimes I would also wonder how powerful she could be as a mother. It became hard for me to ask permission to buy something or go out with friends. I always thought she would never agree or would scold me first. Just like Waverly, I've become too uneasy around mom and even once had this obsession of finally making her happy and proud of me in any way I could, even if it seemed physically impossible.


But then it must be the cruelty of her childhood she was not able to cut off from herself that she unconsciously passed it on to us. All that comparison issue, lola's unexplained hostility towards her, and the responsibility she shouldered as an eldest sister. So then I couldn't blame her all the more.


Somehow there were also some things she passed on to us on purpose. When she was younger, she also received ocassional physical punishments spelled with only one word: dos-por-dos. She has told us she promised herself not to inflict the same pain to us. Like Auntie Ying-Ying, although there were things she was not able to give to her daughter, she was ready at any cost to cut any curse her ancestry had etched so her own family would not be the same again.

I liked An-Mei's story the most, how her mom killed her own self and "gave up her own weak spirit just so she could give her daughter a stronger one." Her story also made me realize I should know my worth by now. I am very like my mom after all: we both want to cut the curse and pass the opposite trait to the next generation, just like what An-Mei tried to teach to her tragedy-stricken daughter Lena.


It must be a bitter truth that every generation experiences the same fate, the same mistakes, the same curse, the same judgements. Watching The Joy Luck Club, I realized, what I am today is not my mom's fault; it's lola's fault, and not even her; it's her mom's fault, and her mother's mother...


The blame goes on, but it shouldn't matter. What should matter is any daughter's belief that her mom had also given her the single swan feather: it may look worthless, but it comes from afar, and with it carries all her good intentions...


I love you mom.