Review And Analysis of Magbuwag Ta Kay, A Bisaya Film by Medyo Maldito

1. The format of the movie's first part reminds me of Woody Allen's Annie Hall. It's like Rowell Ucat is aware that he's just telling a story to you, directly, the viewer. Which means that Medyo Maldito is also aware that Magbuwag Ta Kay is more than a movie. It's to sell an idea or a statement or concept about love. A brand about Love, even.

2. Magbuwag Ta Kay seems to talk about people's addiction to Ego, Drama and Fixed Identity. It tries to find answers to why we never stop loving even when hurting, and it seems to suggest that there's no feeling of being in love without the feeling of being in terrible misery. 

What if you can feel the joy of love without its opposite? I seem to have found it myself in Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now whose ego-training tactics are being used by NASA Austronauts to not panic. Here's a sample of Eckhart Tolle: 

3. It stars the beautiful Akiko Solon who I sometimes imagine to be in a Bisaya Short Film about Mandaue Traffic directed by Lav Diaz starring Spalding Gray, Woody Allen and David Foster Wallace.

4. It features Snake Princess, my nominee for 2025 Philippine National Artist for Postmodern Cinema. Snake Princess makes me laugh the way Siomai Sa Tisa makes me want to live.

5. The movie reminds me of Nassim Taleb's Quote about Love.:

Part I: Formal Movie Review

Magbuwag Ta Kay is the first feature romcom film of internet sensations Medyo Maldito and Akiko Solon that's distributed by Viva Films (Viva is yet to announce when to release this nationwide). 

I can talk about in this movie review about the stars, cast, production design and all that gritty details of how the movie is made, but you can read that elsewhere. What you need to know is what the film is.

The film is a love story of how a couple would break up because of parental demands, typical of what Cebuanos experience when their parents abroad want them to go work overseas because, among many reasons, the political economy in the Philippines is bankrupt, made worse by the fact that every day Filipino police and rebels are "allegedly" killing people; the ISIS is gaining strength; the University Professors teaching Useless Degrees in Cebu are overpaid and are not generating graduates that could help create jobs and solve commuters' traffic problems; the politicians are too corrupt to even care; the system is too centralized to fix and the Cebuano youth are too brainwashed to know what's the right thing to do. You know, typical Cebuano stuff.

Magbuwag Ta Kay is also a surrealist movie about Formlessness evidenced by the fact that in the movie Snake Princess is everywhere. She's the waitress, the Photo Attendant, the Girl on The Beach and The Candle Lady. The movie seems to say that every person in Cebu is united by  one entity, and that entity is Snake Princess. Long Live, The Snake! Also, here are snakes caught by Bisaya Short Films:

All in all, I feel the movie is worth the P200 ticket and I bought 3 tickets using my own time and resources. You will enjoy it if only to hear Medyo Maldito's insightful stories about how Love can be unknowable in human words, to watch the cinematic beauty of Cebu's uptown tourist hangout spots and to watch Efficascent Oil and Lantaw Restaurant become the movie's Best Leading Actor and Actress. Bisaya Napud! Also, Thank you Karlo Pacaña for the Magbuwag Ta Kay tickets. Karlo is the mind behind some of the #BangonTapulan movement in Facebook. Google him!