Viva’s most significant cinematic contributions

(Third of three parts)

In the old days, the local movie industry had Sampaguita, LVN and Premiere and collectively, these were known as The Big Three. (Lebran, supposedly the fourth movie company was quite small, compared to the three.)

In the ‘80s, there was Regal, Viva and Seiko. (Star Cinema emerged only in the ’90s and, now, we have GMA Films producing more and more movies.)

This year, Viva marks its 25th year and to commemorate the event, it has come up with The Silver Series, a compilation of past recordings by its top artists. I also listed down starting last Tuesday the 25 most significant contributions of Viva to the Philippine movie industry. Below is the conclusion:

17. Viva gave us Hotshots, starring Gary Valenciano. Directed by Jeric Soriano, now a pastor, the film mounted musical numbers done music video style. Nothing earth-shaking there? Well, this was way back in 1984. Hotshots was a movie way ahead of its time.

18. It launched Robin Padilla as an action superstar. Robin was already around in the late ’80s – languishing in bit roles. When Viva decided to produce an action film called Bad Boy for Ace Vergel, the troubled action star didn’t show up on the first day of shooting. He got fired and was replaced by Robin. Bad Boy was a hit and Robin Padilla became the next action superstar.

19. It was daring enough to produce a movie that had a depressing theme: autism in Ipagpatawad Mo. This Laurice Guillen movie, however, still did well at the box-office and was even rewarded with the Best Picture trophy in the 1991 Gawad Urian. It also gave Vilma Santos the fifth of her now eight Urian Best Actress awards.

20. Its 1992 film Narito ang Puso Ko allowed drama queen Lorna Tolentino to give the best performance of her career – even better than her other multi award-winning role in Maging Akin Ka Lamang. As the mother who loses her young son to a stray bullet on New Year’s Eve, you feel her pain, especially in her quest for justice. For her performance in this film, Lorna was crowned grand-slam queen. Narito ang Puso Ko also gave Gabby Concepcion a Best Actor trophy and Amy Austria another Best Supporting Actress award from the Gawad Urian.

21. It produced The Flor Contemplacion Story, a dramatization of the plight of a Filipina domestic helper who was executed for allegedly killing another Pinay househelp in Singapore. A box-office hit, it also won several Best Picture prizes, the Urian Best Director for Joel Lamangan, the Best Actress for Nora Aunor and Best Supporting Actress for Jaclyn Jose.

22. It helped develop Joel Lamangan become one of the finest directors today. Although Lamangan has directed one small film for an independent company in the ’80s and handled a lot of shows on television, it was in Viva where he first did his big projects. Now, he is the busiest director around – stopping only to attend awards presentations where he usually brings home the Best Director trophy.

23. It produced Bakit May Kahapon Pa?, a really powerful political film directed by Lamangan in 1996. An exposé on the abuses of the military, it gave Nora Aunor another one of her many Urian Best Actress trophies and earned acting nominations for Eddie Garcia and Dawn Zulueta.

24. It helped propel Regine Velasquez as a box-office queen. Like Robin Padilla (with whom she is doing the soon-to-be-shown GMA movie Till I Met You), Regine was not an overnight sensation. After winning in Ang Bagong Kampeon, she waited for the right breaks to come along and Viva was the first to give her a film – The Untouchable Family. After this, she also did Pik-Pak-Boom and Do-re-mi for the film company. Regine stopped doing movies after this, but returned with a vengeance with the remake of Wanted: Perfect Mother – opposite Christopher de Leon and also produced by Viva. Today, she is not only in demand in the music scene, but in films as well because every movie she makes always wins at the box-office.

25. It became a major proponent of digital films (which help keep the local movie industry alive) – with its Viva Digital. One of its digital film projects, Paolo Villaluna’s Ilusyon, was given a Grade of A by the Cinema Evaluation Board.