Oh My Ghost!

Shelly has been suggesting watching a Tagalog movie for a couple of months. I finally found one that looked goofy enough to keep us interested through the parts that weren't in English. (In this case, about 85 percent of the movie wasn't in English, and since most people in the Philippines speak Tagalog and most foreigners don't watch Tagalog movies, there were no subtitles.

The trailer I saw a week ago for this movie made it look like a comedy, which it was. The first half of the film was filled with breasts, weightlifting midgets, the effeminate men known in the Philippines as bakla, more midgets, more breasts, fart jokes, physical humor (running into doors, that sort of thing), short skirts, cross dressing and a fat actress who goes by the name "Orca." The star of the show (Trixie, the one showing off her breasts) works in an advertising agency (named, apparently, simply "Advertising Agency") and has to fend off the unwanted advances of three tough guys who meet her at the gym.

Then the movie gets dark for a bit: The three guys don't like being turned down, so they break into her house and attempt to rape her. Instead, while outside on a balcony, she gets pushed over the wall and dies. The comedy part of the movie was over, but not for good, as Trixie reveals herself in her ghostly form to her sort-of boyfriend, Alvin, he freaks out and hilarity ensues.

Following a trial -- where the three guys were acquitted and where I learned that Filipino lawyers don't have to wear ties while litigating -- Trixie declares, in English, "It's time to take justice into my own ghostly hands."

This sort of brings the comedy back, as she first sets the three tough guys up, leading to them nearly being gang raped in prison (but in a funny way, you see....), followed by killing one in a car accident, driving another insane (he's hauled off in a straitjacket) and chasing the third around the house with a meat cleaver. She says in English, several times, "It hurts. It hurts, you know," which drew great laughter from the Filipinos in the audience, though I can't begin to tell you why. It's obviously an in-joke, and I'm obviously in the out-group.

In order to stop her murderous rampage, Alvin proposes to Trixie, but once they're at the church, the Father refuses, saying that it is only possible to join two visible people in marriage. (You might have thought Alvin would have checked this out ahead of time...) So Trixie says something like "wait a minute," heads over to a woman who is minding her own business in the front pew, and jumps into the woman's body. At that point, the Father agrees to marry them, making me think that while marrying a ghost is not okay, possession is. (While I haven't heard of the Vatican getting all uptight over this movie like they did over DaVinci, something tells me the Pope would not approve of a man marrying a dead woman who has possessed another woman's body. But, hey, I'm not Catholic, so maybe I'm wrong.)

Once they're married, Trixie heads to heaven, the other woman faints when Trixie leaves, and Alvin rushes to her side, where they begin to fall in love.

While I may have seen a dumber movie at some point in my life, I'm not sure what it was. However, this was a good movie for us non-Tagalog speakers to watch, as the plot was simple enough to follow without actually understanding the dialogue.