Who’s afraid of ‘Hello, Love, Again’?

There’s something else to look forward to next month for those not anticipating to be thrilled by Kathryn Bernardo and Alden Richards in their re-pairing in Hello, Love, Again: QCinema 2024.

The sequel to 2019’s Hello, Love, Goodbye opens in theaters nationwide on 14 November while QCinema opens in several theaters in Quezon City on 8 November and goes all the way to the 17th.

One of the films in the festival is Moneyslapper, top-billed by the actor who was once “King of the  Loveteams”: John Lloyd Cruz. He was sometimes noble, other times ignoble, consort of Bea Alonzo and Sarah Geronimo in many movies over the years. Even if he was their lover only on screen, never in real life, he got tired of it. So, he went for the unglamorous enigmatic lead characters in Lav Diaz’s ouvres that typically drag for hours. 

Cruz’s QCinema movie is titled Moneyslapper, and it’s not helmed by Diaz. The director is Bor Ocampo, though, believe it or not, Diaz is in the film’s supporting cast. The film is a thriller that also topbills Jasmine Curtis-Smith and Charlie Dizon. There must be a love triangle among them, though the film’s synopsis does not harp on it. Instead, the summary says the film tells the story of Daniel (Cruz), who leaves his small town after a life-changing lottery win. Five years later, he returns, searching for redemption. As his journey unfolds, we dive deep into his quest for meaning, peeling back the layers of his past one by one.

The new film is the Philippines’ entry to this year’s Asian Next Wave in #QCinema2024, the fest’s showcase of Asian films. The festival has other Philippine and international sections, of course. We’ll announce the most exciting entries in those sections in one of our columns here next week. 

We’ve mentioned in this corner before that Hello, Love, Again will have an extended opening day by having a midnight screening in 72 theaters after the last full show of the opening day has unreeled. The midnight screening will actually be held on the first hour of 15 November. Tickets were made available online beginning the first week of October and may still go on until who knows when. 

As of this writing, no other local film has been announced as showing alongside Hello, Love, Again. Or is it too early for any Pinoy movie to announce their 14 November opening? Or are they quite nervous about showing alongside the Hello, Love, Again so they just will not dare? 

Ricky Davao’s Pinoy musical

Producers of live entertainment acts -- concerts, musicals, straight plays -- aren’t scared of getting left out of the cold if they put up their shows alongside with Hello, Love, Again, and one such production is actor Ricky Davao’s original Pinoy musical Silver Linings Redux, which will go onstage on 8 to 10 and 15 to 17 November, also at the Carlos P. Romulo Theater at RCBC Plaza in Ayala Avenue, Makati where the play was first put up in October last year. Tickets for the “redux” (repeat) are now available at Ticket2Me. 

We may now informally nickname the production “Ricky Davao’s musical” because the multi-media (multi-platform?) actor isn’t only playing the lead character in this “redux” staging, but also functioning as its line producer. 

Silver Lining Redux will be mounted a year after its original staging. Its first mounting was in 2023 October for just six nights.

The main producer is still Jack Teotico, the foremost owner of several galleries (including Dominique) who used to be a lifestyle-entertainment journo, aside from being administrator later of the government agency Philippine Fiber Authority. Teotico also wrote the play, though the books (songs) were written by Joshua Lim So for the original runs, and new songs in the Redux by Liza Magtoto. Vince Lim carries on as musical director for the Redux mounting. 

At the media conference for the musical held at Red Rhino bar-restaurant at Greenfields, Pasig, Davao said about half of the Redux cast is new. He actually has an alternate as Leo, the persistent lover of old songs, a music man. The alternate is James Wilson, a veteran of dozens of musicals (along with his sister Monique, who has opted to live and work in London for years now mainly as a teacher of Theater Arts). Wilson was the technical director in the original staging. 

“Kilala n’yo na naman ako na di lang mahilig sa teatro at sa pagkanta, kaya bakit ko naman palalampasin ang pagkakataon na maging lead role sa isang musical (You already know I just love theater and singing, so why would I let the opportunity pass to play the lead in a musical)?” Davao said as soon as he sat down with a handful of journos and vloggers at the media huddle. 

Last year, Davao actually passed up appearing in a TV series just so he could accept the offer to play the lead role in Silver Lining.

The play follows three friends from an exclusive boys’ high school, now in their senior years, who got together to form a band for their Golden Anniversary Homecoming. They herded their wives and teenage kids to variously join the band, but after rehearsing for over a year, they are given notice that due to time constraints, their band can only perform three numbers. Saddened by this news, Leo decides to make a musical instead. The whole caboodle of friends and their families join in the adventure of putting up a musical, thus, making Silver Lining original and its Redux “a musical within a musical.” A grand theater event, right? 

As preparations for the Leo-led musical go on, memories and past histories of their teenage years and university life unfold. 

An intriguing element of the play is the search for the truth about what really happened to Leo’s love interest, Julia (Kristal Brimner), the activist last seen in the company of comrades Raúl (Raúl Montesa) and Agnes (Hazel Maranan).

Also in the lead cast are Raul Montesa (as Raul), Joel Nunez and Nene Arcayan.  Albert Silos plays young Leo, Jay Cortez as young Raul, Sara Sicam as young Josie and Dippy Arceo as Dalai. The play actually has a big cast. 

Both original and Redux are directed by Maribel Legarda who for years now has been the stalwart director of Philippine Educational Theaters Association, the good ol’ 50-year old PETA. If those who watched last year’s Silver Lining felt like they were viewing a PETA production, indeed they were, not only because of Legarda’s stage direction but also due to Lim’s music and musical direction. Lim has come to be identified with PETA for some years now. His conjugal partner is PETA major actress Gold Villar, who also sings superbly. 

The Redux version’s additional writer, Magtoto, is also long identified with PETA whose plays are mostly written either by her or by Rody Vera. 

In October last year, PETA’s major musical was Walang Aray written by Vera and directed by the young Ian Segarra who has been with PETA for years (he’s no upstart but a well-trained, well-rounded theater artist!). Some runs of the musical had ABS-CBN stars Alexa Ilacad and KD Estrada as lead actors. Lim, being just either in his late 20s or early 30s, had the creative energy to be music composer and musical director of both Walang Aray and Silver Lining. PETA’s productions are staged almost always at its theater center in Eymard St., QC. 

It’s not bad, of course, to have a musical not produced by PETA but feeling like one. It’s actually very good. Silver Lining is produced by Teotico’s Rockitwell Productions with theater artist’s Ms. Jay Glorioso’s Music Artes. 

Having dragged PETA in this column issue, we can now tell you that the theater company, as well as ABS-CBN and GMA 7, know for sure that movie releases do not dent attendance of live entertainment productions. ABS-CBN and the Kapuso Network are the co-producers of Hello, Love, Again, which engulfs movie houses starting 14 November. But on 8 November, ABS-CBN will begin co-presenting with PETA the musical Tabing Ilog with a cast of almost entirely young ABS-CBN stars. The show goes on until 1 December. 

So there: it’s only the other producers of Pinoy movies who are scared of Hello, Love, Again. Also, there is a substantial number of Filipinos who have money for live entertainment acts in which the General Admission ticket is now typically P1,000 or even higher. Those Pinoys most likely watch films not in the movie houses, but on Netflix and other subscription platforms. 

Mabuhay ang Pinoy showbiz!