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.

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.