Moonlight Butterfly

The real star of this movie is the writer, Eric Ramos. He creates a tragic, realistic view of life on the fringes outside of Manila. Life in the remote villages there are completely different from life in any city you have been in around Asia. There is a lot of abject poverty, and residents must do what they can to escape it.

One young woman, who is played by the very promising Christine Bermas, escapes this poverty by becoming a moonlight butterfly, a term used to gracefully describe a lady of the evening in the Philippines, the place where the film was produced. The male lead is played by Kit Thompson, who plays a CIA-type character, despite the fact that he does not operate realistically as a CIA operative (this is one of the weaknesses of the film)

Although the movie is about a prostitute, there have been several other good films about prostitutes (Klute, Butterfield 8 etc) that move the plot of their films forward without excessive onscreen sex scenes. Suggestion is always much more effective than blatant and gratuitous sex scenes. Bermas, however, moves beyond these limitations and gives an outstanding performance. The terrorists portrayed in the film are also rather cartoonish, as they do not operate that way.

Despite these limitations Ramos creates a very realistic view of life in the boonies in the Philippines. He only falters when he enters the area of international intrigue. He has great promise as a future writer for films, as long as he does more complete research on areas he is not familiar with. The film is engrossing from beginning to end, so I can recommend it, despite its storyline flaws.