Bang, bang... who’s dead?

Remember back in 2005 when a movie called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was shown, “a murder mystery that brings together a private eye, a struggling actress and a thief masquerading as an actor,” starring Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan?

Opening nationwide tomorrow is a movie (trilogy) called Bang Bang Alley which should be interesting not because it will crack your brain trying to solve a murder mystery but because it will make you see the path that three new directors are taking. Produced by Curve Entertainment, Inc. and Nimbus Film production (distributed by Solar Entertainment), the crime-drama anthology offers stories that, according to the press bulletin, “serve as unsettling social commentary on corruption, violence, amorality and betrayal” in this society.

Episode 1, titled Aso’t Pusa’s Daga (Dog and Cat and Mouse), is about “an aging bodyguard who encounters a painful nostalgic flashback while at a karaoke bar listening to someone singing My Way his way. The violence that erupts sets the tone for the stories about to unfold.”

As we know, the Frank Sinatra hit (written by Paul Anka) is notorious for being a “deadly” song that, when sung in a beerhouse, could make a drunken man kill the one singing it off-key.

With Bela Padilla and Joel Torre among the cast, the episode is directed by Yan Yuzon (brother of Yael Yuzon, the brand-new husband of Karylle) who joined the theater in 1991 first as an actor then as a playwright and director, wrote for television from 2005 to 2012 and directed a few music videos.

Episode 2, titled Makina (Machine), is about “a driver who is off the edge when he discovers his wife cheating on him.” The cast include Gabe Mercado and Alex Medina, directed by Ateneo B.A. Communications graduate King Palisoc who is an award-winning director whose body of work ranges from music videos and TV/film to corporate AVPs and TV commercials.

Episode 3, titled Pusakal (Stray Cat), is about “a coke-fueled reprobate who accidentally kills her sister’s boyfriend. Fleeing to an abandoned lodge in remote mountains, she befriends the property owner whose own secret could destroy them both.”

The episode was written and directed by Ely Buendia who plays a role in it, together with Perla Bautista and Megan Young who was not yet Miss World, not even a Miss-Philippines-World, when the movie was shot several months (or a year) earlier.

At the presscon, Perla was roundly applauded when she revealed that she’s 74 (her birthday was last February) and has been in showbiz for almost half a century. Not all actresses are gutsy enough to admit how old they are, right?

Ely was short of a few units for a degree in filmmaking when  he formed the rock band Eraserheads of which he’s the former lead singer. He’s a producer on the movie, with Narciso Chan, Vic Valenciano and Rudy Tee as executive producers.

When Bang Bang Alley shoots off in theaters tomorrow, who will lie dead?

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