Emir, the biggest Filipino musical is here

Are Filipino moviegoers going to give Emir a warm, make that enthusiastic, grand or even a blockbuster, box-office hit welcome when it opens on June 9? I hope so. Now if you are among those who are reluctant to answer yes to that question, please allow me to say that the reasons why they should, are many.

Emir is about the Filipino overseas worker. Anything about them deserves our support. After all, remittances from Pinoys working abroad keep our economy from tanking big time. From what I have seen in the trailer, this is not your usual oppressed OCW story with cruel employers and unscrupulous agents. It is about a Filipino nanny whose love for her charge, a young prince leads to a huge sacrifice.

Emir has an exciting talented cast. Forget the names of current box-office draws. In this picture are actors in every sense of the word, who went through rigorous auditions. They can be counted on to deliver good performances. Sid Lucero, Julia Clarete, Jhong Hilario, Bodjie Pascua, Emil Sandoval, Beverly Salviejo, singers Dulce, Gigi Escalante and Bayang Barrios, new discovery from the TV show Are You The Next Big Star? Frencheska Farr and others.

Emir boasts of a production team made up of film, stage and music people with solid credentials. At the helm is director Chito Roño. You know Roño. He is known for movies like Sharon Cuneta’s Caregiver. Even at his worst, he is still a great deal better than most filmmakers active in the trade nowadays. Besides, I heard Emir is one of his dream projects. So you can bet he threw in extra effort to make this one truly memorable.

There are also screenwriter Jerry Gracio; director of photography Neil Daza; production designer Digo Ricio, musical director Chino Toledo with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra; choreographer Douglas Nierras; editor Jerrold Tarog; sound engineer Mike Idioma; and as composers Gary Granada, Vin Dancel, Ebe Dancel, Diwa de Leon and also Toledo.

Now that is more than the usual number of songwriters required in a motion picture. The reason they are all here is because Emir is a musical and needs a lot of songs. Produced by the Film Development Council of the Philippines in association with the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Emir is actually the biggest Filipino musical ever made.

And when they say biggest, it means over P50-M in budget. That is why they could afford locations like exotic Morocco and our native Ifugao province, gorgeous sets built in a soundstage, an all orchestrated score, high-definition photography, Dolby 5.1 Digital Surround Sound and other pluses. Truth to tell if everything works out, Emir might just become one of the best Filipino films ever made.

But you say, it is still a musical. But that is precisely why nothing was spared to make Emir an event. Local box-office has never been kind to musicals. So musical films are something today’s producers, given how volatile the movie market is, would never risk millions on. So it is left to a government agency like FDCP to do something about it.

I myself cannot understand the Filipino’s aversion to musicals. Everybody sings around here. But they titter and hiss whenever somebody breaks into a song during dramatic moments in a movie like they did in West Side Story and Moulin Rouge. The melodrama, where there are some songs and lots of mood music in the soundtrack, like the Sharon and Regine movies, is the furthest that producers should go if they do not want to lose their investment.

The Pinoy’s flair for music is now almost legendary. In fact, we are so good with music that we have now lost count of the number of Miss Saigons we have produced and I am sure will still produce. And take note, I do believe Charice is just the first of many international pop stars from out here. There will be more to come. Maybe it’s about time we give the musical film another chance.