Filipino-made animated films

We've all heard Filipinos become famous abroad in different fields. Half-blooded or not, they made names in different fields like singing: Nicole Scherzinger, Mutya Buena and errr.. Renaldo "I am Your Brother" Lapuz (The guy who joined American Idol Season 7). Batista's there too for WWE! XD

But despite their acknowledgeable (or not-so-flattering) accomplishments, more and more Filipinos step up to the game and try out the waters to be successful in any field. Take this new accomplishment for example: Filipinos are now tapping into the art of Anime. It's not just your average morning kiddie shows but full-length animated movie (with great graphics If I should say) that was worthy enough to be recognized internationally.

Although many Filipinos love anime ever since (and most of what the eastern culture brought us), I think we just weren't able to give much recognition to our artists (drawing) and of course, there's the technological limit we have. Dubbing of Japanese animes still sucks But things have changed! And finally after all these years, we were finally able to come up with our first Filipino-made all-digital animated film! (I know this is like yesterday's story but guess what, I have updates! XP)

The first one to made was the one that starred Regine Velasquez and Cesar Montano's voice. It was "Urduja" which came out June 18, 2008 in cinemas. It's about our very own folklore from Pangasinan, the warrior princess Urduja who is set to marry Lakapanti, someone he doesn't love. Along the story, she meets Limhang where they obviously fell in love together but loses the crown in return. The story also involved protecting their tribe from ruthless invaders.

Just to refresh you, here's the movie trailer:

Next one which came out last December 2008, was courtesy of Cutting Edge Productions with "Dayo", a stroy of a boy named Bubuy who has to save his grandparents who were abducted and brought to the strange land called Elementalia, which is home to a host of strange creatures. These 'creatures' were the different kinds of elemental beings in filipino horror stories. Bubuy makes friend with Anna, a manananggal, a winged girl who has wings and well, has half a body. She doesn't eat babies though, it would be gruesome to show that in the movie! XD

"Dyan ka lang! Wag mko kakainin! Dyan ka laaaang!" *Pokes you with wooden fork* =))



I also read in an article that there was a movie that came out before Dayo, it was about our beloved and perpetual high school lesson... Ibong Adarna. However I'm not fully aware of this animation coming out in cinemas and the net even has little information about it. I wonder if it was ever even released?

And now heading to the last and extremely hyped animation, here's one series to watch out for. LaMB, or "Laminated Woman: To the Sand Planet Cerra" as it was entitled before it was bought by Animax for a whopping $6 milion just so they can produce it to a full-length animated movie. Well, basically it's now Singapore who holds production for this anime but the story was based on the script written by Carmelo S. J. Juinio (who is proudly a Filipino) as his entry for the 2007 Animax Awards.

Before it comes out sometime this 2009, inform yourselves of what the story is all about. (Summary from http://animax-lamb.blogspot.com/2008/12/lamb-whats-it-all-about.html)

"The story takes place on the planet Cerra which is 25 light years away from Earth. The main characters are Jack and Eve. Jack is a scientist who is tasked to restore life to the barren planet. He tries to forget about his wife who passed away by keeping himself busy on his work. Eve on the other hand is an ex-weapons specialist who has accidentally taken innocent lives while on a mission. She was sentenced to 200 years of virtual imprisonment and will take part of the lamination scheme.

All prisoners on Cerra go through the process of lamination in which after the procedure, they will be called "LaMBs". Once they become a LaMB they will be assigned to a "shepherd" who can almost have full control over them. LaMBs follow 16 rules and one of those rules strictly prohibits them from harming others. If the worse case happens and they attack another human being, they will receive a severe electric shock by the suit they were given. The most interesting part of lamination is that it was first designed to be a beauty treatment to prevent aging by stopping the degeneration of . The government of Cerra called "Central Administration Bureau of Cerra" (CABC), found a better use for the beauty treatment and decided to exploit them on prisoners. All male prisoners were called Adam and all female prisoners were called Eve, followed by their serial number.

LaMB starts to get interesting when unintentionally Jack gets pulled into the political system of lamination and a Romance with Eve begins."

To know more about LaMB, visit the official site here. (Coll site btw! :D)


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