Film Review: The Kingmaker

Imelda Marcos tells her side of the story in The Kingmaker

As a teenager in the 1980s, I learned about Imelda Marcos and her husband, then president of the Philippines, through my two classmates. I later found out they and their families had fled the country to get away from Marcos, and later watching news reports of their wealth excesses, it was a wonder how they amassed so much wealth, while most the country was literally dirt poor.

My first (and so far only) visit to the Philippines was in 2017 for a food trade show in Manila. What shocked me the most was seeing metal detectors everywhere -- including our hotel The Peninsula Manila -- and we were lucky to be staying in Makati, the business district, but also where the wealthy live.

Greenfield reveals Marcos' inconsistencies

Our escort on the trip from Hong Kong was staying with her uncle and she told us they hardly every went out of their family compound. But if they did, her uncle always brought his gun with him...

So I was very curious to watch The Kingmaker, a documentary by Lauren Greenfield about Imelda Marcos. At first I thought it was just going to be about her, but it was much more than that.

The opening scene shows a drone shot of the shanty towns in the foreground, with glimmering towers in the back. Imelda Marcos is in a chauffeured car and when it stops at a red light, she opens the door and hands out crisp bills to poor children with outstretched, dirty hands.

She later says that the Philippines was not like this when her husband was in power.

We see her in her home, immaculately dressed, an army of nervous servants attending to her, from holding her arm to adding more powder to her face that still retains her beauty.

When she was eight years old she was orphaned when her mother died, but later became a beauty queen who caught the attention of Ferdinand Marcos who was a senator at the time. Eleven days later they were married.

Marcos enjoyed being First lady

One can tell Marcos is keen to tell her version of the story, how she was "a mother" to the country and gave it love. She did this buy buying wild animals from Africa and had them deposited on an island, but not before kicking out 254 inhabitants there; she bought at least four properties in New York City, a home in Beverly Hills that was strangely in actor George Hamilton's name, and the numerous dresses, thousands of pairs of shoes and the jewellery!

When the country revolted against the Marcoses and they had to flee to Hawaii in 1986, she slipped lots of glittering baubles into bags holding baby diapers that was put onto the plane. On camera she says that jewellery helped pay for legal fees. Yowsers.

Marcos also likes to boast who she knew, and Greenfield finds the archival footage to prove she met people like Muammar Gadafi, Saddam Hussein, and even Mao Zedong, where there is a clip of him kissing her hand. She considered them all friends...

While she maintains she and her husband did everything for the good of the Philippines, others say otherwise in The Kingmaker.

One of the giraffes caught in Africa for Marcos

When Marcos declared martial law in 1972, he claimed he did this due to a "communist threat" though opposition leaders said he used this to consolidate his power and shut down criticism. Fourteen out of 15 newspapers were shut down and those rebels trying to oust him were summarily executed.

One journalist recalls being physically tortured by having to crouch and his shins were beaten; his younger brother worked for the resistance and was caught and killed. A teacher recalled being tortured by electric batons -- by her own students, and an activist talked about being sexually assaulted by a group of men.

These testimonies are a stark contrast to the romantic picture Imelda Marcos tries to portray about her and her husband's grip on power. 

But there is more.

She tried to engineer the continuation of the Marcos dynasty by having her son, Bongbong become president, but first become vice president in the 2016 elections, but he lost by over 260,000 votes and even refused to concede.

The position of vice president is also elected, not chosen by the president like in the United States.

Bongbong tried and failed to win vice presidency

Rodrigo Duterte came to power, but it is revealed in The Kingmaker, that he also comes from a wealthy family, his father once served in Marcos' administration, and the late president's daughter Imee helped Duterte win.

And now he rules with impunity, killing tens of thousands of people on a supposed war on drugs without trying them in court.

So the Marcoses still have their wealth and power, fuelled by selling off whatever expensive trinkets they accumulated to keep their political dreams alive, including a Monet that was sold for over US$32 million.

And what happened to those African animals, the zebras and giraffes?

No one knew how to look after them, and they were literally left on their own, inbreeding which led to physical problems in the giraffes like shorter necks and not even being able to hold them upright. The human inhabitants there are resentful of the animals given priority over them.

Marcos below her Picasso and priceless art

Meanwhile the next generation are being taught revisionist history and in class they parrot how martial law was good for the country, and have no idea what really happened. Sound familiar?

It is quite eerie to see how the Marcos' have control over numerous institutions in the Philippines thanks to their enormous wealth and influence. As one critic points out, as long as they have money, they will continue to call the shots in Philippine politics. 

As she says being First Lady in the beginning of the documentary, "People underestimate women, and sometimes that's useful." 

That was Marcos' strategy, and she will continue using it to get what she wants -- power, wealth and more power.

Picture of the Day: Star Ferry

 

Love this view from the Star Ferry terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui!

After watching Minari my friend YTSL and I had dinner -- Korean! And then I walked to the Star Ferry.

I just missed the ferry, but managed record it sailing off to Central. The sky was so clear, the colours so vibrant on Hong Kong island.

 

This is one of the things I love so much about the city.

Film Review: Minari

Minari is about a Korean family making a new life in the US

 

When was the last time I saw a film? 

I saw a short documentary back in mid-November, but the last time I saw a film was probably about a year ago.

The 45th Hong Kong International Film Festival kicked off yesterday but not without controversy. 

Where the Wind Blows was pulled last minute

The opening film was supposed to be Where the Wind Blows and was pulled at the last minute by the film's owner for "technical reasons", a euphemism in China for censorship.

Starring Aaron Kwok Fu-shing and Leung Chiu-wai, Where the Wind Blows is about two resourceful detectives who forge dangerous alliances with organized crime in 1960s Hong Kong. 

As it is a joint production between a Hong Kong and Chinese companies, the film may not have received the proper approval on the mainland, or perhaps the subject matter was too sensitive with the portrayal of the police.

In any event, I watched Minari, the Golden Globe winner for foreign film (because the film is half in Korean and half in English) this afternoon at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre. 

Alan Kim plays David in Minari

Every person who entered the Cultural Centre building had to either scan the QR code on the LeaveHomeSafe app or leave their contact details at the door, and everyone had to wear a mask, no consuming drinks or food inside.

Then inside the theatre, several seats were blocked off here and there where people could not sit. 

Minari is about a young Korean immigrant family that moves from California to Arkansas, the father Jacob played by Steven Yeun, is determined to make something of himself. 

He buys a plot of land with a trailer home with the intention of growing Korean vegetables, but his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) is hardly impressed, and tensions flare up between the two.

Then there is the sub plot of the adorable son David (Alan Kim) and older sister Anne (Noel Kate Cho) who desperately want their parents to stop arguing.

Youn is a very famous actress in Korea

When their maternal grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) comes to visit, there's some comic relief, but also three generations of cultural differences are revealed that make the film endearing.

Director Lee Isaac Chung wrote Minari based on his own parents coming to the United States to make a new life for themselves.

In an interview with Time magazine, Chung says: "When my dad was in junior high, all these American films started to be introduced into Korea for the first time. My dad started to watch westerns at dollar cinemas in Seoul and felt like America was a miraculous place. 

"His family had lost a lot of land during the Korean War and the Japanese occupation. That affected him a lot as a kid. He always felt like he needed to come to the US and get land. It's an old Hollywood pioneer story he was working on."

Chung with his daughter during Golden Globes

For many immigrant children the story in Minari resonates deeply, the heated arguments about sacrifice and money, how to raise Asian children in the west, and feelings of isolation. 

The film has been nominated for six Academy Awards this year and hopes are high it will win big following the momentum of Parasite!

Seven Convicted in Illegal Assembly

Some 1.7 million people protested on August 18, 2019

Seven pro-democracy activists, former lawmakers, lawyers and a newspaper owner were convicted of organizing and taking part in an unauthorized anti-government protest on August 18, 2019.

They include Apple Daily tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, veteran opposition campaigner Martin Lee Chu-ming, and former lawmakers Lee Cheuk-yan, and Cyd Ho Sau-lan. 

After the march started, the rain poured down

I just reread my post from that day, where an estimated 1.7 million people came out. It suddenly started pouring with rain, and everyone had their umbrellas out but we were still wet from water dripping from other umbrellas. The heaving crowd inched its way from Tin Hau to Causeway Bay and then to Central.

It was a peaceful march, no tear gas, no destruction, just a lot of people walking in the rain.

And yet these seven people were arrested, charged and convicted.

Prosecutors said the seven accused turned an approved assembly into an illegal one on the pretext of crowd control, while the defense argued they were merely leading the rally participants out of the park to alleviate overcrowding.

Judge Amanda Woodcock found there was no need to disperse hundreds of thousands of people from Victoria Park in the form of a procession, as there was no evidence that exit routes were in accessible or problematic, or that the park was so overcrowded that a stampede or risk of serious injuries was imminent.

Martin Lee and Albert Ho at the courthouse

She said the seven inequivocally intended to stage the illegal event, as evidenced by them carrying a banner and shouting slogans as they walked out of the park.

"I am sure this public procession was not about dispersal of crowds. That was a description used to defy the law and circumvent the ban. This intention was vocalized repeatedly and publicly days before the public meeting. It was only a dispersal plan in name, and the truth is it was a planned unauthorized assembly," Woodcock wrote in her 89-page judgment.

As for those 100 police officers who prevented the crowd from leaving the park and then made them inch along the way, then suddenly disappeared, Woodcock agreed with the commanding officers testifying in court that far from neglecting their duties, police were being "prudent" as they hoped to minimize the risk of violence or confrontation that day.

The judge found the protest march caused serious traffic disruption -- but it was a Sunday and every weekend before that there were protests in the area, and she rejected the argument the seven had a reasonable excuse for their acts because the protest was peaceful.

Margaret Ng was also one of seven convicted

"It cannot be right that to arrest and prosecute is disproportionate in this case because no actual violence broke out. That would give the law no teeth and make a mockery of it," she wrote.

The seven will be sentenced on April 16 and could face up to five years in prison. 

Eighty-two-year-old Martin Lee, who usually has something to say after a court case, was uncharacteristically silent as he left the West Kowloon courthouse, while Cyd Ho of the Labour Party said she was "disappointed" by the verdict, saying the case reflected the erosion of freedom of speech and expression.

"The collapse of Hong Kong's political regime will [cause it to] become a hotbed for corruption," she said.

Samuel Chu, the managing director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council said of the convictions: "This trial was also about the long history, legacy and contributions of the elder statesmen and women of the movement. It is about discrediting their lifetime contributions to Hong Kong, to the movement, to workers, to grassroots, to individuals and their professions."

This is the first time Martin Lee has been convicted and will be sent to jail. 

How does the man who helped draft the Basic Law, who was trying to find a peaceful path towards democracy in China get thrown in jail?

It is a terrible sign that even moderates are too much of a threat to Beijing and must be silenced. There is no other way. 

Lai also faces a national security law charge

The seven convicted:

Martin Lee Chu-ming

Jimmy Lai Chee-ying

Cyd Ho Sau-lan

Lee Cheuk-yan

Albert Ho Chun-yan

Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee

Leung Kwok-hung

(Au Nok-hin and Leung Yiu-chung pleaded guilty earlier)