CROSSPOINT

Philippines, 2024, 100 minutes, Colour.

Carlo Aquino, Takehiro Hira, Kei Kurosawa, Sarah Jane Abad, Dindo Arroyo, Ian De Leon.

Directed by Donie Ordiales.

This is a first feature film made by Japan-based Filipino director and writer, the Donie Ordiales. And it uses both Japan and the Philippines as settings.

There is a sinister problem, a young girl lost in the street, a seemingly sympathetic man offering her help, sexual attack.

The screenplay then offers two lines of plot development. The first focuses on Manuel (Carlo Aquino) successful singer in the 1990s, now wanting to be an actor, married with a pregnant wife, alienated from his business successful father. He is turned down for an audition, becomes disillusioned, makes contact with friends in Japan and decides to go there to try to resurrect a singing career.

The other line of development focuses on the Japanese businessman, the father of the initially assaulted girl, clashing with his daughter who wants to pursue a music career, while he himself is suffering from financial difficulties, trying to call in loans, finance demanded of him, thugs coming and assaulting him.

These two characters come together after the singer has had some success in Tokyo, then being reported to immigration authorities by a jealous worker at a club, relying on a friend to get him a position at the Filipino club in a country town. Then, we see the initial criminal, killing the owner of the club and stealing her money, by chance passing the singer as he tries to phone his friend.

Looking for accommodation, the singing goes to a restaurant, the businessman speaking English and offering to help, the conversation, mutual telling of stories, then the television news indicating the murderer has struck again. The singer recognises him and the two men, with some difficulties in approach, decide to try to capture the killer and split the reward money.

There is quite some tension in the confrontation between the two men and the killer, entering his house, the businessman with arrows, the singer with a baseball bat, and the operation not going according to hopes and expectations. In fact, the killer takes the license of the businessman, has his address, goes to the house and attacks the daughter – and, there is the expected attack by the singer after driving frantically to the house.

The end of the film does not quite have the heroic happy ending that might have been expected, the businessman dead but leaving his money to his daughter and her career, she finding that he had attended one of her concerts and had been filmed on his phone. On the other hand, the singer, because of his visa, has no claim on the reward and returns home, reunited with his wife in hospital awaiting the birth of the child, having learned some lessons and a reconciliation with his father.

A film for the Filipino audience, especially with Carlo Aquino as a star from his child acting days, a film for a Japanese audience with the business man played by Takehiro Hira, prominent in television’s Shogun and a number of American films including Rumours (Canada) and Captain America, Brave New World. And it has enough elements for a world audience and released by Netflix.