'The Red Shoes' Movie, Now Showing!

I was invited by Nuffnang Philippines & Unitel Pictures on The Red Shoes Preview Night at the Podium, last week. The movie may sounds foreign, but it was actually made by Filipinos. It's from the same movie outfit that brought us the hit, Inang Yaya & The Crying Ladies.

The Red Shoes is not your usual bubblegum love story, the movie uses a lot of interesting metaphors that makes the film interesting. The choice of Marvin Agustin & Nikki Gil is perfect, I'm not really a fan of these two but after seeing the film, I must say that Nikki Gil is one of those underrated Pinay actresses.  Tessie Tomas sure brought up  the loud laughs among audience and Iwa Moto brings in the hhmmmm...

The story does not really happened in real life, but it makes you feel otherwise. A world class film, I must say. It's gonna worth your every peso.

In 1986, in the evening of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines, ten-year old Lucas Munozca (Marvin Agustin) catches sight of the First Lady’s 3000 pairs of shoes at the Presidential Palace and decides to steal a pair.

In 2006, Lucas, now a professional wedding videographer, is seemingly stuck with one kind of footwear: white sneakers. He, too, is stuck with his past; unable to move on from losing the love of his life, the “well-heeled” Bettina (Nikki Gil), who, when they were still a couple, always wore flats being taller than Lucas.

Lucas’ mother, Chat (Liza Lorena), is similarly stuck on her past. Doing manicures and pedicures for a living, Chat gets to take expensive shoes off the feet of affluent women. After all these years, she still grieves the loss of her husband, Lucas’ father, Domingo (Tirso Cruz III). A construction worker who loved to walk barefoot, Domingo perished along with an untold number of workers during the collapse of an upper floor of the Manila Film Center in 1981, a pet project of the then First Lady Imelda Marcos. Chat has almost given up trying to contact the spirit of Domingo until she meets a talented spiritist, Madame Vange (Tessie Tomas), who happens to be, of all things, an Imelda impersonator.
When Lucas accepts a high-profile wedding video assignment, he discovers that one of the principal sponsors is Madame Imelda Marcos herself. He is then forced to confront the consequences of stealing the shoes of the former First Lady and to reveal the real reasons why he did it: for poetic justice and for love.

As a boy, Lucas had originally wanted to steal two pairs of shoes–one for his mother Chat to be a token replacement of the shoes she never got for her birthday from her husband Domingo because he died constructing Imelda’s film palace; and another pair of shoes for his childhood sweetheart Bettina whose family had suffered from the Marcos regime. But young Lucas lost his nerves and only managed to steal one pair. And so, he had given the right shoe to his mother; and the left shoe to his beloved.

20 years have separated the shoes and, now, Lucas retraces his journey and discovers that the Imelda shoes is his way back to healing and redemption.