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Like Zeeworld movies, Phillipine movies also come with a method. And an annoying one too. And of course because i am a hater who always comes prepared, here’s a list of 6 annoying things about Phillipine movies to give you perspective.
1. They are always misplacing their children.
Case in point: Mara and Clara. The story of twins misplaced at birth who later meet somehow in the future with one twin being rich and the other being poor. Like how?
2. Or they lost their memory.
These people have romanticed memory loss and amnesia. Talmabout; Where am I? Who am i? You’re on earth child. You finish watching an episode and suddenly feel like after mascara the next thing you need to apply is some memory loss.
2. There is always the rich boy poor girl dynamic.
Can’t two rich people fall in love? And can’t two poor people fall in love? Is love now an economic statement? Do we need to start a twitter call out fest before you people realize that poor people can fall in love too?
3. Then someone always does a perfect plastic surgery to become someone else to confuse both the audience and characters.
This caption is actually your best shot at understanding what goes on there.
4. The Lip syncing.
Yes, we can tell the actors are speaking in a language that is not English.
5. The only thing everybody is always interested in is falling in love.
Which makes me wonder if the government sponsors their existence and pays for all the fine clothes they are always rocking.
6. Too many plot twists.
First he died, then he wasn’t really dead, then he started living elsewhere and fell in love afresh, then he died again, then he went back to his first love. One person o. You miss one episode and everything just falls apart.
Long before VOD and streaming sites made us mentally cancel local television stations and almost forget how they work, there were AIT soap operas.
AIT gave Nigerians the premium foreign entertainment we so desperately needed in the form of American (and later Mexican) soap operas and we were hooked. For years, we returned, night after night, to catch the latest instalments of our favourite shows. Shows like:
1) Passions
Who could ever forget this show, its many characters, and all the insane storylines that ranged from the traditional (high school drama and cheating married couples) to the supernatural (feuds between centuries-old witches and intersex serial killers)? Whew. The writers on that show had a habit of taking things from 0 to 100 in seconds and tbh, that’s why we loved it.
2) Sunset Beach
Much like Passions, storylines on Sunset Beach ranged from the traditional to the supernatural. My two favourite storylines from the show were the Terror Island storyline – where several characters were trapped on an Island with a masked serial killer – and the Cursed Jewels storyline –where jewels were stolen off the crown of a Madonna statue but they ended up being cursed.
3) Second Chance
Second Chance (or the Ultimate Proof That Rich Privilege Exists in the Afterlife) premiered on AIT in 2005, causing like 80% of the country lose their damn minds. People swore that they watched it for the intriguing storyline – which it had – but I suspect they only did because of Salvador, the hot male lead. Why else did everyone start referring to the show as “Salvador” instead of its actual name?
4) When You Are Mine
As good as this show was, I remember tagging it in my head as the second excuse for the Telenovela Gods to show off the intense chemistry between the leads actors, Sergio Basanez and Silvia Navarro. (The first show they starred in together was Catalina and Sebastian.)
5) Catalina and Sebastian
Or as I like to call it, “The first time the Telenovela Gods struck onscreen chemistry gold with these two actors.“
Catalina (Silvia Navarro) is a gold digger who marries Sebastian (Sergio Basanez) solely for his wealth but is hella shocked when she discovers, after the wedding, that he’s really just the supervisor of the ranch she initially thought he owned and lived on. The gag is that Sebastian really is loaded but is testing Catalina for some reason. Hilariously dramatic hijinks ensue.
Did we forget any other AIT soap operas? Let us know in the comments.
First things first, the Passions theme song was freaking awesome. You can’t even deny that. Passions followed the lives of the residents of the fictional town called Harmony, chronicling their various romantic and paranormal adventures. The major storylines focused on the interactions between the core families: The Russells, The Cranes, The Bennettes, and The Lopez-Fitzgeralds. Like any good soap opera, Passions had it all (romance, lies, betrayal, sex, murder) but truly excelled when they included elements of the supernatural involving the characters Tabitha (a centuries old witch), her doll, Timmy (who could come to life) and Charity Standish (a girl who had the ability to harness the forces of goodness. Lol). We were all crushed when AIT for some reason decided to stop airing Passions. Contrary to what people think, the show wasn’t cancelled and actually ran from 1999 and had a proper ending in 2008. If you miss the show and want to catch up, you can go to NBC’s website and read up.
2. Sunset Beach
Sunset Beach actually premiered in 1997, 2 years before Passions did, but didn’t last as long. AIT hooked Nigeria up and and began airing it after they stopped airing Passions (probably so people wouldn’t start committing suicide due to awesome soap opera withdrawal). It followed the lives of the residents of Sunset Beach and the shenanigans they got involved in. The show was mostly known for its batshit crazy storylines like that time when all around evil woman, Virginia, stole a doctor’s sperm, drugged Vanessa and artificially inseminated her with a freaking TURKEY BASTER (LOL!) so Vanessa’s husband, Michael, would think she had been sleeping with the doctor. Or that time a couple of characters stole jewels from a statue of Mary only to find out that the jewels were cursed and whoever possessed them would eventually shrivel up and die. You guys, Sunset Beach might have been insane but it was pretty good. Also, how do cursed jewels end up on a statue of Mary? LOL
3. When You Are Mine (Cuando Seas Mia)
When You Are Mine was pretty much the first Nigerian foray into the world of Mexican telenovelas. It starred Silvia Navarro and Sergio Basanez as Paloma and Diego respectively who spent most of the show’s run just trying to be together but family members and other factors wouldn’t let them be. Who remembers Diego’s brother, Fabian and his INSANELY hot wife, Barbara? Or Diego’s slightly unattractive wife, Berenice, who seemed to sleep with everybody?? When You Are Mine was a very good show but what made it really great was the chemistry between the show’s leads. It was epic.
4. Second Chance
EVERYBODY watched Second Chance. Someone once said that if you went out on the street whenever Second Chance was on, there would be no one out and you would hear the show’s dialogue coming from the TV sets of every home. It was about this rich old man named Don Pedro that marries a much younger woman named Isabel and then promptly dies. Thing is, his soul doesn’t move on to the afterlife but goes into the body of a poor handsome man named Salvador. He goes to his house, gets a job as driver and slowly begins to uncover a shitload of secrets, truths and deception. This show was mostly popular because of how fine the main character, Salvador, was. This is pretty much how the conversation goes between people who watched it and people who didn’t.
Person 1: Did you watch Second Chance?
Person 2: No.
Person 1: AH! You missed gan! Salvador the main character was so fine!
A lot of people who didn’t watch the show now think that the only reason people liked it was because the lead was fine.
One question nobody bothered to ask was this, if Don Pedro’s soul went into Salvador’s body, even tho the real Salvador wasn’t dead at the time, where did the real Salvador’s soul go the entire time his body was possessed by Don Pedro’s soul?
Feel free to answer this in the comments.
If you can.
5. Catalina and Sebastian
This show was the first time Sergio Basanez and Silvia Navarro lit up the screen together (it was their undeniable chemistry on this show that led to them being cast again on When You are Mine). Catalina (Silvia Navarro) marries a rich man named Sebastian (Sergio Basanez) purely for his money but is given the shock of her life when she goes to the ranch he lives on after the wedding and finds out that he’s really just the ranch supervisor. In reality, he really is rich and is just testing her by forcing her to live the life of a poor woman. Eventually, Catalina starts to love him regardless of him being poor. If you haven’t seen it, you should.
