The ‘liberation’ of Seiko

This is a season for movie sequels. Spider-Man has an exciting and more colorful Part II. Kill Bill has Vol. 2, which has more talk and less gore. Why, even Seiko Films’ Liberated has Liberated 2.

In the first installment of Liberated, Diana Zubiri played a young woman who couldn’t find meaning in life. She merely hopped from bed to bed until she came to her tragic end.

Liberated 2–though it maintains basically the same cast as the first version – follows a different story. In the Liberated 2 screenplay by Ricardo Lee, Diana Zubiri and Francine Prieto are best friends who share different men (but on a one-night stand basis only) and maintain a scorecard between them. It is a foolish game they play, but they are serious about sticking to the rules: No repeat performances and – more importantly – they don’t fall in love with the men who come in and out of their lives. That is – until a rich and good-looking swimming champion (Christian Vasquez) enters the scene and complications set in between them.

As in the first version of Liberated, Diana and Francine also keep as barkada Rodel Velayo and Tuesday Vargas. Rodel and Tuesday, however, turn out to be even more effective supporting players in Liberated 2. They provide much of the comic punches with their wonderful performances.

A former resident stud of Seiko Films’ sex movies, Velayo has become the studio’s resident gay character (after Liberated 1 and Bridal Shower). This is a positive development in Rodel Velayo’s career because he is finally being recognized for his versatility as an actor. And he is getting better and better at playing gay parts (practice makes perfect). In fact, he is at his best here in Liberated 2.

Rodel’s best scenes – and he is brilliant here – are those with Ynez Veneracion who plays a baby-maker. The part where they are supposed to get on with their lovemaking is simply hilarious and the entire sequence works mainly due to their all-out performances – particularly Ynez, who is really a gem of an actress, except that she’s hardly utilized in this business. Here in Liberated 2, she looks very pretty and in good shape. I hope this opens more doors for her in the movies.

Tuesday Vargas fares even better here than in the first version of Liberated (where she was cast as a single mother in love with a bartender played by Reggie Curly) because her role is a lot funnier — that of a family breadwinner (with a dozen siblings) whose only ambition in life is to work abroad, except that she keeps getting rejected by foreign embassies, including that of Czechoslovakia. A truly talented comedienne, Tuesday excels in all of her scenes in Liberated 2.

As for the two lead actresses – Diana Zubiri and Francine Prieto – they don’t necessarily allow themselves to get eclipsed by Velayo and Vargas. Both women actually shine on their own. This is made possible because they are each given good enough material to chew on.

Zubiri already impressed me in the first Liberated film, but she delivers an even far better performance in the ongoing sequel. (I guess she has to thank Bubble Gang for developing her flair for comedy.)

Francine Prieto in Liberated 2, on the other hand, is able to match her fine performance in Jeffrey Jeturian’s Bridal Shower in the last Metro Manila Film Festival. She seems to be one of the better young actresses in local cinema today.

I doubt, of course, if Liberated 2 will bring acting awards to either Diana or Francine because it is not really a serious film. For sure, it will not win a papal award – I’m betting my present life (and even my next life) on that. The movie, in fact, is exploitative. But women’s rights activists will cheer over the fact that not only women are exploited here, but also the men. Talk about equal rights.

As a piece of entertainment, however, Liberated 2 undeniably succeeds – but we are talking on the level of adult entertainment here, I would like to clarify that. I give credit to the effort of the director and the screenwriter and the actors for coming up with a film that may not be all that great, but at least tries not to insult the intelligence of the viewers.

After Bridal Shower and now, Liberated 2, it seems that Seiko Films will finally be liberated from its image as the home of cheap and trashy sex movies.