MANILA, Philippines - He may not flaunt it the way others who wear shirts with the Philippine flag printed on it do. But make no mistake about it. Director Eric Reyes will choose adobo over Kentucky Fried Chicken; good, old-fashioned Pinoy rice over American cereals anytime, all the time.
In fact, when he lived in Canada with his family years back, direk Eric realized that “I will always have Asian sensibilities, wherever I am.”
Read: He cannot make a film for Western audiences unless they deal with Asian life.
So he packed his bags and returned to the Philippines.
He never looked back since. He made people sit up and notice him and Angel Locsin when he directed the series Lobo.
Now, direk Erik shifts to a genre he admits he has yet to get used to: Romantic drama. He directs the remake of the Koreanovela Lovers in Paris, starring KC Concepcion and Piolo Pascual.
The director again wears his Pinoy heart on his sleeve in the new ABS-CBN series (airing weeknights on Primetime Bida).
KC as lead star Vivian Vizcarra, for one, is not the submissive woman Koreanovelas depict their heroines to be. In true enlightened Pinay fashion, she speaks her mind and decides on her own.
“It’s actually a story of woman empowerment,” direk Eric says.
“Japanese executives walk and gesture in a different way,” direk Erik observes. So he will ask Piolo to move and talk the way a Pinoy captain of a ship would.
“Manggagaya na nga lang ba tayo? Let’s do things the Pinoy way. I don’t want to copy what others have done. This Lovers in Paris has a Pinoy twist to it,” he says with pride.
He’s taking this out-of-the-box thinking a step further by giving the otherwise classy KC a newly-minted mass appeal. He brought KC to Smokey Mountain where one of the scenes were shot.
So how do you make a pretty, privileged young lady like KC fit in a place which stands for all things humble and abject?
It was easier than anyone would have imagined it to be.
“KC even sent me a text to thank me for showing her a place her sheltered life has not allowed her to see,” he relates.
Thus do we see what used to be unthinkable: The pretty, privileged KC standing amidst a row of shanties and a pile of garbage.
Direk Eric is shattering stereotypes. And he couldn’t be any prouder.
“I want to show that even the beautiful share the common tao’s concerns,” he explains. “A good life is not the monopoly of the beautiful.”
In going beyond the obvious, direk Eric might just make us look at teleseryes in a newer, different light. He might make us see that beyond all that laughing and crying is a deeper message that will make us re-think our priorities; re-examine our choices. Perhaps then, we can see more clearly; decide more wisely.