His boldness contrasts sharply with the meek, reconciliatory voices which dominate the movement. military have already defeated Spanish colonialists and readying themselves to annex the Asian archipelago, and Luna is busy steering the independence movement towards a direct confrontation with a superpower aiming to gain a toehold in Asia. Shunning the inconvenient truths of Luna’s early-life brushes with politics - he started out advocating political reforms rather than outright revolution - the film begins in 1898, when he has already delved headlong into the armed struggle and is the commander of the Philippine Republican Army. Truly recommended.Read More ‘Shadow Behind the Moon’ (‘ Anino sa likod ng buwan‘): Vladivostok Review Otherwise, it's just an ultimately entertaining film that exceeds expectations. And it pokes fun at some unwise decisions the people behind this war make, but what matters is the intention of its subject unable to die while he's still standing. Yes, this is a war movie that gets brutal, but the movie focuses on a meatier and more challenging side of the ordeal. It's great, not only because it's humorous and visually interesting, but it's also a two-sided argument towards its history, not based on praising, but actually by criticism. Anything else, there is so much to love in Heneral Luna. The former can be forgiven since they're technically not the main villains of this ordeal, while the latter is just a single scene and obviously designed to keep shaming the cowards at the battlefield. But again, these are quibbles and they can be debunked, even by myself. Maybe some quibbles I could point out maybe how the enemies are portrayed felt like they're written to be campy villains and maybe just one punchline in the film that felt like it belongs to a comedy skit. The supporting also lends real gravity and even delight on screen, but it's Arcilla's show and that's more than enough of a worth seeing performance through out. He brings a genuine humanity, and at the same time, a really compelling sense of madness, which terrifically lives up to the complexity of its subject. The acting is beyond impressive specifically John Arcilla as Antonio Luna. The movie is paced nicely even at times it's layered to different events, but puts itself together consistently. The filmmaking is stunning, slick and stylish. And when it's not trying to pull off any sense of levity, we just get to see the story flesh itself out more in the sidelines of its history and other characters. The humor is clearly just satirizing to those characters who aren't being helpful and those who are afraid of facing Luna's rage once more. At times it gets pretty symbolical, specifically the climax. Back to the fact that this is taken a lot out of creative liberties, the movie fills this history with vast amount of sense of humor and violent panache. But that also indicate that winning this revolution deserves more discipline than what they got. Though his intentions are right, his rage could get out of hand which puts most of them off. The film doesn't glamorize the character of Luna, either. But of course, their real goal is independence the movie makes a punchline out of those who aren't helping out, those who are just running away and those who are just isn't fond of Luna's aggressiveness. The real detail of this war is how many soldiers chickening out from the battlefield and some officials wanted to work with the Americans. Although we see warfare with both the Philippine and American army attacking each other, this battle is basically the secondary concern here. The film is all about justifying their quote about the real enemy of this war is themselves. How the film executed these ideas are just brilliant, it gets larger-than-life without feeling outlandish, towards the heart of defending the nation worth fighting for. The war is brutal, over-the-top to bring up for visual flare, and their serious situations being often treated as sincere satires. In spite of being more intense and surprisingly humorous, the movie stays loyal to what this figure truly stands for. Heneral Luna opens claiming that this is a fictionalized biopic of one of Philippine's most important historical figures, Antonio Luna, for the sake of getting the modern audience into the history's bigger picture.
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