JE C.C.
Star Cinema films have focused their lens on the plights of Filipino workers overseas, hence the many romance films it produced featuring the lives of OFWs, through the years.
Star Cinema is known for targeting hopeless romantics and love-crazy audiences through its hit ‘kilig’-infused romcoms. But while the film outfit relied almost entirely on the rom-com formula, it has not abandoned certain perennial themes that it kept touching over and over again, regardless of the film’s primary genre. One of those themes is the Filipino diaspora.
Over the years, Star Cinema films brought moving stories that depict the OFW plight, around the world, to the silver screen. The following are just 8 of those films:
Milan (2004).
Starring Claudine Barretto and Piolo Pascual, Milan tells the extraordinary story of a husband who went to Italy to look for his wife, who has gone missing for years.
He instead found a new love who then helped him, found himself in the end. Milan is directed by prolific director Olivia M. Lamasan. Both Pascual and Barretto received the top acting accolades from the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS), that year.
Hello Love, Goodbye (2019).
Currently the highest-grossing Filipino film of all time, Hello Love Goodbye is one of only two local movies whose worldwide gross exceeded PhP800million (the other being The Hows of Us, which is also starred by Kathryn Bernardo).
Following the story of Joy, a domestic helper in Hongkong, the film chronicles self-discovery and personal liberation. Both Alden Richards and Kathryn Bernardo are named Film Actors of the Year and Phenomenal Box Office Stars of the Year by the Guillermo Mendoza Memorial Scholar Foundation in 2020.
Love Me Again (2008).
Love Me Again marked Angel Locsin’s first movie project when she moved to ABS-CBN.
It served as her second project with Piolo Pascual, whom she also worked with on the TV series, Lobo, months earlier. The film follows Arah, a Bukidnon native who tried her luck in the Australian outback to make her life and her family in the Philippines better. The film grossed more than PhP70 million at the box office.
Sana Maulit Muli (1995).
Shot in San Francisco, USA, Sana Maulit Muli is the sophomore film of the Lea Salonga and Aga Mulach tandem, following 1992’s Bakit Labis Kitang Mahal.
In the film, Salonga played Agnes, who was pushed by her boyfriend Jerry (Mulach) to go to the States to attend to live with her estranged mother. The film followed how time and space fracture relationships, and how time and space, themselves, repair what is broken.
Dubai (2005).
Dubai follows the story of brothers Raffy (Aga Mulach) and Andrew (John Lloyd Cruz), who both fell in love with Faye (Claudine Barretto). As Raffy and Andrew grew up together as orphans, the former worked his ass off in Dubai, so they could move and live together in Canada.
But when the two brothers finally got reunited, things went sour when between them when Andrew fell in love with Raffy’s ex, Faye, from whom he hadn’t moved on.
In My Life (2009).
This film followed a Filipina mother who went to the United States to visit her son, only to find out he was gay.
The film marked one of the very rare instances that real-life mother-son tandem, Vilma Santos and Luis Manzano, worked in a film. John Lloyd Cruz was also part of the main cast as Manzano’s boyfriend. In My Life chronicled a story of family, self-discovery, and acceptance.
Barcelona: A Love Untold (2016).
Barcelona is among the very first KathNiel (Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla) films that proved the couple’s immense box office power, having grossed more than PhP300 million at the box office.
The movie follows the story of Mia, a former Law student who went to Spain to compensate for the dire mistake she did back in the Philippines. Her life changed when she met and fell in love with Ely, a man a workaholic guy who is trying to nurse his broken heart.
Miss You Like Crazy (2010).
Set in Malaysia, Miss You Like Crazy marked the seventh time John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo worked as a love team in a movie.
The movie tells the story of Mia (Alonzo) and Allan (Cruz), whose love story got sealed by fate and destiny. After years of working with different partners, the project served as Alonzo and Cruz’s reunion film.
What is your recollection of these films? Did you think we missed something on the list? Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comment section:
