It's crying time in Hong Kong

So when was the last time you cried over a movie?

Asked that question, the driver (Joven Quiogue) of the DOT taxi that I took to the spanking-new international airport Saturday afternoon for the hour-long PAL flight to Hong Kong couldn't remember when, but he was sure it wouldn't be long before he'd cry again over another screen sob story.

"My wife and I are setting aside a day off to watch Anak," he said. "We've been watching the movie's trailer on TV and it's already making us cry. Baka bumaha ang mga sinehan when the movie is finally shown."

Told that I was going to Hong Kong to cover the world premiere of Anak (last Sunday, May 7), the driver added, "You're lucky you're watching it ahead of most of us."

It turned out that the driver was a former OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) and so was his nurse-wife, both having served their contracts in Saudi, so it was no wonder that he -- and his wife and, presumably, their grown-up children -- could hardly wait to watch Anak, directed by Rory B. Quintos from a screenplay by Ricky Lee and Raymond Lee (no relation), and topbilling Lipa City Mayor Vilma Santos and Claudine Barretto as the mother and daughter who couldn't see eye-to-eye, forever headed for a head-on collision, because the daughter resents her mother's self-imposed absence while earning precious dollars as a domestic in, that's it, Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was therefore a fitting venue for the world premiere of Anak (Star Cinema's Mother's Day offering, showing starting tomorrow) because it chronicles the plight of an HK-based OFW and the adverse effects of her 10-year absence not only on her daughter but also on her teenage son and her little daughter, and her difficulty in readjusting into the local milieu and into a family she finds in shambles.

With me on the trip were Inquirer's Rina Jimenez-David, Ethel Ramos, Bulletin's Crispina Belen and Manila Standard's Isah Red invited to cover what was veritably an "event"among domestic helpers in Hong Kong who spent their Sunday day-off being confronted with a movie that lays bare a real-life story, of charged with drama and emotion, they've been sharing, perhaps sometimes secretly, all this time.

The Anak entourage, led by Charo Santos-Concio (Star Cinema Executive Producer and ABS-CBN VP for Entertainment), included director Rory Quintos, scriptwriters Ricky Lee and Raymond Lee, Trina Dayrit (Star Cinema Supervising Producer), Malou Santos (Star Cinema Managing Director), Pat-P Daza (ABS-CBN PR Executive), representatives of Mama Sita (sauce) which co-sponsored the premiere and a whole ABS-CBN crew which beamed the proceedings live to The Buzz (main buzzer Boy Abunda was in Hong Kong "live," too).

And, of course, Anak topbillers Vilma Santos and Claudine Barretto (chaperoned by her mom, Inday Barretto) were accounted for, making the event doubly memorable for our homesick kababayan in the former British Colony. (Vilma's husband, Batangas Rep. Ralph Recto, followed the mayora who, along with the whole family, just came from a grand three-week holiday in L.A.)

The three screenings (with two more scheduled on May 14 and 21) have been sold out weeks in advance, with dozens and dozens unable to buy tickets to last Sunday's show which was set from 10 a.m. to 12 noon at the Cine Metro (two screening rooms, actually, both packed full with people) because the OFWs had to be home by late afternoon.

Watching Anak with the domestic helpers turned out to be a memorable experience for everybody; it gave us a first-hand view of how the domestic helpers reacted to their story unfolding on the big screen, themselves magnified bigger than life.

It was crying time in Hong Kong. Silence greeted the start of the movie which was partly filmed in some parts of Hong Kong (Nathan Road, the Statue Square where the Filipino domestics gather Sundays, etc.). Soon, as the Vilma character starts feeling the cold-shoulder treatment from her daughter (Claudine), as the homecoming mother desperately tries to win back her estranged children (the father, played by Joel Torre in flashbacks, is long dead), as mother and daughter evade a confrontation which they can't anymore brush off, the whole theater was sniffing as boxes of kleenex were passed around. Why, even the "stone-hearted" Isah Red was crying! And so were Cris and Ethel and Pat-P (and boyfriend, Quezon City Councilor Mike Planas) and Charo and Inday Barretto and Rina. Everybody!

"It left a cathartic feeling in the audience," Rina said later.

Vilma, as expected, turns in another "winning" performance (far better than her Bata, Bata, Paano Ka Ginawa? acting) while Claudine is a big revelation as the rebellious daughter, so hateful (especially when she's answering back at her mother) that when, in the final confrontation scene, Vilma slaps her and throws clothes at her and, okay, okay, "Lumayas ka sa bahay kung ayaw mo akong makita," the crying audience erupted into an approving applause.

I was convinced that the movie put a large mirror in front of all of us, making us all see our relationship, maybe strained, with our own mothers, with our own sisters, with our own brothers. Anak presents the story of an OFW, all right, but the feelings and emotions involved are those of yours and mine, hers and his, theirs and everybody else's.

Over a late lunch at a fastfood center at the basement of the Pacific Place, Rina, Isah and I recollected our own childhood clashes (inevitable, I should say) with our own elders and how now that we're old and graying we appreciate all the more the concern and the protectiveness and all the sacrifices our parents are doing for us.

"It's a wake-upper of a movie," said Cris.

Imagine, I had to go all the way to Hong Kong to cry over a movie! And I don't regret it.

"It will make us love our mothers all the more," said Isah. And I agree with him.

Asked after the screening if, like Vilma's character, they would go back to Hong Kong to resume work after a harrowing if healing homecoming, most of the domestic helpers answered, "Yes, we would!"

One of these days when I bump into the DOT-taxi driver, I'll give him movie passes for his whole family to watch Anak. I'm sure that after shedding the inevitable tears, they, too, will look at their family and at life itself from a different light.

Anak made me sympathize with OFWs even more and at the same time made me thankful that I don't have to go abroad to earn a living.