toddly6666

Third time is a charm! After trying to sit through two Philippines big-budget action films (Exodus and I forgot the name of the other), I'm relieved to finally find a professionally-made, watchable Filipino blockbuster action film. But RESILKO certainly gets a grading curve for being a moderate success. It's the first Filipino action film that looks professionally filmed, edited, with respectable CGI and special effects. The acting isn't that bad depending how you watch this film. If you decide to watch this film, be in the mood for the following types of films:

THE RUNNING MAN
THEY LIVE
ROBOT JOX
WATERWORLD
TANK GIRL
JUDGE DREDD
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
JOHNNY MENOMIC
DEMOLITION MAN

If you know what I'm getting at, RESILKO is actually an ode to some entertaining sci-fi, action big-budget films of the 80s/90s. It's basically a mid-90s period-piece, action/sci-fi flick. What I like about this film is that it's fun, takes itself seriously (if it took itself jokingly, then it would be like a "wink-to-the-audience" spoof film which I'm not crazy about - Space Balls is an exception). It seems like it's a kids film, but it's actually very violent with stabbing, blood, heavy machine gunnery. So, it's basically an action film for everyone I guess, but more marketable for teens.

The special effects is very impressive and the spaceship, robot machinery scenes are pretty awesome - not up to the level of robots in Terminator Salvation, but getting close. It's more stylishly done like a live-action anime film. The people blend very well with the CGI elements which is a huge plus for me (awfully done in Star Wars prequels).

And the star of the film is Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. You gotta love that name. He's known as the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Philippines. Besides acting, he's also a popular senator in real life. He ain't the greatest actor but he has an interesting presence about him - sort of reminds me of Roddy Pipper.

The Thai PAL DVD is of very good quality. It's anamorphic widescreen with original Tagalog/Filipino DD 5.1 audio. The video is excellent, bright and crisp - nothing really problematic with it. And the audio is pretty active. RESILKO is one of the first Filippino films to have surround sounds. As it played in theaters in Philippines, I read online that people were excited that RESILKO was the first film of their own that had a Dolby Digital sound design.

The English subtitles were very good with a slip up here and there, and there are no extras on the dvd.

If you are curious about this film, you can purchase the DVD here for a small price of $11.50: http://www.ethaicd.com/show.php?pid=46602

You can watch the trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKUvvKK-kkU

Okay Philippines, now you are getting somewhere! Good job!

MOVIE: 6.5
DVD VIDEO: 8
DVD AUDIO: 8
EXTRAS: 0