Mano po (2002)

Never have I seen such a film that had to enforce the fact that the characters are Chinese, as if they didn't already establish that by making the characters' eyes chinky through the magic of make-up or giving them surnames like Go or Lau. Of all the restaurants they had to dine in, it had to be a Chinese restaurant, and they wear red all the time. This was just too stereotypical that it could be labeled quite insulting to the Filipino-Chinese community.

To add to the over dramatic film (and having characters cry in movies does not always qualify it as a drama!), they had to have some suspense and so they had two of the daughters kidnapped. They are under the assumption that all Chinese-Filipinos are wealthy, and all their children are always being kidnapped, which of course is complete bull. Though it happens it doesn't happen to every Chinese-Filipino.

You would have thought that this movie would focus on the real customs and familial and day-to-day problems of Filipino-Chinese families and how it is different from Filipino families. But it was still your same telenovela with overused themes and over dramatic scenes, just using characters of a Filipino-Chinese background.

It's references and research must totally be weak because it even portrayed passe Chinese cultural practices such as having a concubine in the present time (which has long been unpracticed by many Chinese-Filipinos, and Chinese for that matter), which can be very misleading for the viewer.

What I'm trying to say is, for the moviegoer who was expecting something new, and not your typical drama with overused themes and over the top crying scenes, this is definitely the cheesiest and stereotypical movie I've ever seen. What made it successful was the hype over never having released a movie about Filipino-Chinese people, and the fact that it had popular stars (I prefer not to call them actors because they can't even act to save their lives, if you ask me) like Richard Gomez, Maricel Soriano and Kris Aquino in it.

And for the last time, we live in the modern times, so not all Filipino-Chinese OR Chinese for that matter go about wearing Chinese costumes everyday!