Filipino Reviews Reviews

Film Review: Goyo: The Boy General (2018) by Jerrold Tarog

"Bark Goyo, bark"

Considering the critical and commercial success of “Heneral Luna”, a sequel was bound to happen at some point, with Jerrold Targo deciding to focus on Gregorio del Pilar (aka Goyo) a young general who also played a crucial role in the Philippine-American war. Furthermore, since the character was already present in the prequel, he decided to cast the same actor for the role, , thus adding to the continuity of the two movies.

The story begins immediately after the events of the first film, essentially the next day, where we find Goyo being tasked by President Emilio Aguinaldo with hunting down Luna's loyalists in the Philippine Revolutionary Army. His search is a success, although the schism within the Filipino army, following the murder of Luna, is evident. The result, however, is that Goyo is promoted to Major-General of the army in Pangasinan. From this point on, the movie is split into two parts, with one focusing on the relatively peaceful time Goyo spend in Bulanca, along with his unit, which includes his older brother Julian, newly assigned photographer Joven Hernando (who also functions as the narrator of the movie), and his best friend Vicente Enriquez. The second part starts with Goyo and his forces marching through the mountains of the Cordilleras, including a number of skirmishes with the Americans.

Evidently, “Goyo” screams epic with the job done in the costumes, settings, battles and locations being top notch, and Pong Ignacio's cinematography capturing all in gusto, through the mostly sepia tones that dominate the movie. Furthermore, the fact that Goyo is a young man allowed Tarog to include another audience-favorite element, as the first part revolves around the way young women act as groupies of the young general, as much as his romance with Remedios, the daughter of Don Mariano Nable Jose, thus adding an element that was definitely missing from “Luna”. In that regard, beauty and charisma in the role definitely adds much to the entertainment the film offers.

At the same time, the despicability of the politicians and the lack of organization of the Filipino army are added, this time, to the feud between Luna's former and Goyo's current forces, in a series of issues the Americans exploited time and time again, form another of the bases of the narrative here, in probably its most interesting aspect. Particularly the march through the mountains highlights these issues quite intently, essentially being the main source of drama in the movie. Furthermore, the presence of Joven Hernando as narrator, through his writing in his diary, works quite well for the movie, filling some gaps and also adding a very pleasant “art” element to its crowd-pleasing nature. Lastly, Goyo's death is probably the most shocking scene of the whole movie, since its suddenness finally induces it with a very welcome sense of realism regarding the blights of war.

On the other hand, the issues here are definitely more than in its predecessor. To begin with, the romantic aspect and the effort to show how handsome Goyo is ends up being annoying in its duration after a point, particularly in a film that is 155 minutes long. Furthermore, the character and the events that surround him are not as interesting (or at least not as interestingly presented) as Luna's, while Paulo Avelino, although handsome, is definitely not on the same level in acting as Arcilla, whose energy truly filled the screen. Probably this time Tarog aimed at attracting younger audiences, considering the nature of the film, but the goal definitely had an impact on the overall quality of the movie.

In the end, “” ends up being an imbalanced film, with the second part being much better than the first, to the point that the former could have been restricted to just a few scenes. The battles and the production values save a film that will probably appeal to fans of epic war movies, but the comparison with its predecessor definitely leaves this one on the losing side.

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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