Mario Ohara

Set during the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines between 1942 and 1944. Rosario (Nora Aunor), a young schoolteacher, is engaged to be married to Crispin (Bembol Roco). Crispin leaves Rosario to fight the Japanese as a guerilla, and in his absence a Japanese-Filipino officer named Masugi (Christopher de Leon) rapes her. Masugi later returns to Rosario apologizing for his act, bearing gifts of canned food and rice which Rosario at first refuses. Matters are complicated when Rosario’s father Mang Andoy (Mario Escudero) is arrested by the Japanese and Rosario reveals to Masugi that she is pregnant. Rosario must make a choice: accept Masugi’s proposal to make her his wife (saving her father and ensuring a safe and stable life for her child), or reject him and with him the baby they have conceived together.Read More »

In a poor village by the Manila Bay breakwater, brothers Buboy and Basilio come to the city to escape from the violence at home. They meet a prostitute named Pakita and become close with her when Basilio treats her wounds. All they want is to lead normal lives, but the town’s leader Dave has knavish interruptions that await them.Read More »

Tony Rayns, Time Out Film Guide wrote:
One-time Lino Brocka protégé O’Hara is not shy of traditional melodrama, still the lifeblood of most Filipino cinema, but Demons fits no established genre template. Part social history, part ghost horror story, part romance, part quasi-Marxist parable, it has no obvious antecedent except parts of Night of the Hunter. Set on Negros Island, the action spans nearly 20 years in the lives of Nena (De Leon), daughter of a fish-farmer, and Jose (Alano), the son of casual labourers. As they move through puberty and try to bridge the class gap, the island is riven by terrorist actions and military reprisals (echoing assassinations and political turmoil in faraway Manila), giving new meaning to the local mythology of jungle demons. O’Hara balances the narrative between drama and elegy, between occasionally shocking images and the poetry of Amado Hernandez and Florentino Collantes. Often wonderful.Read More »