But comic relief is rare in this bulldozing epic about a selfless patriot in a dangerous age, and the film is filled with scenes and dialogue highlighting Luna’s vision of his country being free from external domination (namely the US, seen here butchering and bayoneting locals with impunity) and internal division (as Luna enforces standard-issue uniforms to rein in clan-building commanders). Heneral Luna does have its lighter moments, such as the general’s near-slapstick attempt to commandeer a train for his soldiers or his gallows humor while trapped in the trenches. After Luna’s laments in bed about war being “a cross I have to bear,” Isabel - who also happens to be a leader of the local Red Cross chapter - ends their relationship, proclaiming their respective public duties as more important than their clandestine affair. Read More Oscars: Thailand Picks ‘How To Win at Checkers (Every Time)’ for Foreign-Language CategoryĪnd the film hardly strays off message: Luna’s lover, Isabel (a fictional amalgamation of the general’s many partners, and played here by Mylene Dizon), turns out to be as audacious and patriotic. With Luna’s demise very much predestined, Tarog’s film plays out a whirlwind j’accusein which a warrior defies his double-dealing detractors, rages against the dying light and lurches towards a grisly end. This is a man who has previous experience killing off his dissenting comrades, as in the case of the execution of rebelling commander Andres Bonifacio, a brutal murder glimpsed in a brief flashback, and serving as the harbinger of things to come. While Luna is shown living and working alongside his soldiers and talks his talk of the need to put country before family and everything else, Aguinaldo operates behind a neat desk - an indecisive man under the sway of his backers, his cronies and even his mother. While Luna is constantly at loggerheads with the former colonial-era apparatchiks who have reinvented themselves as pro-independence leaders, his biggest adversary here is actually the movement’s leader Emilio Aguinaldo ( Mon Confiado). 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. Read More ‘Shadow Behind the Moon’ (‘ Anino sa likod ng buwan‘): Vladivostok Review

The heneral luna movie