User reviews

The movie makes history interesting for people. The screenplay is astounding and contains that sort of witty comedy that interests viewers. Cinematography was also great. Ricky Davao's acting as a disgruntled director in search for a film inspiration nails it. Not too cold yet not too exaggerated, a fault that most Filipino actors think is something to get ahead in the film industry! The movie however suffers from long running time. Viewers may just sleep off the extra minutes, and some may find the movie too comedic that it suddenly starts to lose sense and substance. However, the latter did not happen. This is definitely a good example of movies with a progressing storyline, keeping the viewer waiting for the best parts. Quirky, comedic and catchy-- Bayaning 3rd world has a good edge among other films of its generation and is thus a good diversion from those dusty-musty romantic movies that are being lobbied all the time

This film uses the example of Philippine national hero Jose Rizal, in order to call into question the myth-making process, and it problematizes the very method of writing history.

It is a meta-film, of sorts, presented from the perspective of two film-makers who are hoping to "reconstruct" the life of Rizal as a "mystery movie", which answers the many questions that mainstream history conveniently "forgets about", in its efforts to characterize Rizal as a hero.

Director Mike DeLeon tries his hand at pastiche film-making, using a post-modern mix of mock commercials, archival historical footage, stylized re-creations of past events, and conventional narrative film-making. The end result is a cinematic patchwork that is alternately funny, enlightening, and smart, without ever coming across as too high-brow or pretentious.

Quite frankly, this film is so complex that my words alone cannot do it justice. If you are at all interested in Rizal, historiography, or how a hero is "made"-- go watch this now, if you can!

This is the best movie ever made about Jose Rizal as both seen in the past and now. Although we just finished watching it 2 days ago and have to make a deconstruction paper about it for tom., I realize that it is the only movie that gives you 2 sides of the life of Rizal and gives you all the "facts" that can help you make you own opinion about our National Hero. It also has humorous ideas that somehow makes you very interested to see what, how, where and when it really happened. It's like a sherlock Holmes' case and you are Watson who is trying so bad to find out the truth. Although you don't go through dark alleys, you go through time and even meet the characters themselves... The way the movie was presented was not even confusing. The writer must have been a very organized person to think of how the whole movie would go...wow....I really love this movie....not to mention that you can really feel the "times" because of the color used.. Every person should watch it and it is true, as one of the comments said, that the director is a hero for making such a movie...Amazing!....now...ponder ponder ponder......was Jose Rizal really heroic enough to be our national hero..or heroic for that matter...or does Andres Bonifacio have a chance of stealing the title from the Pilibustero? or was he even a pilibustero?......hmm...... watch the movie.......