MMFF REVIEW: ‘Bar Boys: After School’ is a passable sequel

Bar Boys: After School, winner of the FPJ Memorial Award at this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival, brings back Kip Oebanda’s characters from his popular 2017 coming-of-age comedy-drama. Set 10 years after the first film, it reunites Torran (Rocco Nacino), Erik (Carlo Aquino), Chris (Enzo Pineda), and Joshua (Kean Cipriano).

The sequel is long and bloated, but it’s clear that Kip Oebanda is deeply attached to these characters. “After School” revisits the same narrative elements that made the first film connect with audiences, carefully arranged to feel familiar to fans while also trying to win viewers who may not have seen the original.

In a personal conversation I had with Oebanda last year, after watching the musical adaptation, he shared that the idea for “Bar Boys” came from hanging out with his lawyer friends, who complained that lawyers are usually portrayed as villains in film. That led to the idea of painting lawyers as the good guys this time.

That theme still drives the sequel, again presenting lawyering as heroic and self-sacrificing. However, it openly recycles familiar devices from the first movie, such as recitations, visual callbacks, and symbolic moments.

This time, the story introduces new bar reviewees: Arvin Asuncion (Will Ashley), Trisha Perez (Sassa Gurl), and CJ David (Therese Malvar), alongside Joshua, who is returning to law school after failing the bar in the first film.

Justice Hernandez, played again by Odette Khan—who won Best Actress at this year’s festival—returns as an important figure, now terminally ill.

The overall structure closely follows the original, to the point that the sequel rarely feels fresh. The dialogue is also one of the film’s weakest points. Scenes set in classrooms or review sessions, especially those referencing Philippine law, sound overly memorized.

English dominates the dialogue, which makes sense given the nature of legal discussions, but the lines are too textbook-like. You can hear the actors trying to sound natural, yet the sentence construction keeps jolting viewers out of the scene.

The film also tends to be preachy. Justice Hernandez is no longer a fully active character but a guru figure, visited and cared for by the original group and the new reviewees. The hospital-room scenes function as plot devices used to dispense lectures about sacrifice, duty, and the supposed nobility of law, along with quotable life wisdom.

Oebanda’s political sensibilities are most visible through Erik, now working as a pro bono lawyer for marginalized farmers. That angle works better than Chris’s subplot, which involves marital drama but feels underdeveloped.

Emotions escalate quickly, with characters breaking down easily and tears predictably rolling on cue, but these moments rarely land with real impact.

Overall, “Bar Boys: After School” is passable and well-acted, but weighed down by repetition and preaching, making it feel more like fan service than a necessary continuation.

2.5 out of 5 stars

“Bar Boys: After School” is one of the eight entries at this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival and is screening nationwide until 7 January.