Padayon (2021)

One of the better pinoy low budget productions

The plot of this series is simple at a first glance: The neglected son of a rich landowner visits the manor house of his father's rural property and falls in love with the housekeeper's son who rescues him when he is attacked by the local gang of bullies. There are for a series as short as this (6 x 20 min) too many subplots to mention here, which is an advantage as it adds credibility to the story, but a disadvantage at the same time as it takes away space for the main couple.

The script though is much better than in many of the numerous low budget productions. The main characters' background is explained in a surprising depth, and their development is understandable. Also, the situation of the rural population (like dependency on landlords who live in the city, restricted access to education, poverty because of unfair market conditions, and the disgusting wave of government-induced killings in the Philippines) is described extensively. The director and writer, Tyrone Lim, says he wants to tell a true story and educate. Maybe it's a bit too much education sometimes.

Of course, it can't be denied this a low budget production, but it's not as bad as many others. They've made the best out of these conditions, some landscape shots being really beautiful, with the predominance of the color brown hinting at the poor living conditions in that village.

I liked the acting of the main couple, Ian Rosapapan as Kai and John Padilla as Andre, whose performance is natural and credible, but I liked Yoyen Bautista as Kai's longtime best friend Drixler even more. I could feel his character's disappointment, jealousy and despair. What I don't really understand is why again like in many other pinoy bl-series there are trans characters that do not help develop the plot but are rather displayed in a merely comic way which doesn't do justice to this part of the lgbt community.

There are some highlight scenes in this series, e.g. Kai's family commemorating the killed father and Kai and Andre's mutual account of their childhood. The scene I liked most, however, is the climax of the plot, the confrontation of Andre, his (you may guess:) evil (ex-) girlfriend Elaine and Kai, which is appropriately commented on by the noisy competition of some (you may guess again:) roosters. This scene, and Elaine's final text message to Andre's father obviously serve as a cliffhanger for a season 2.

Finally, I must mention the extraordinary soundtrack by musical director Lester V. Flores who contributes some beautiful songs, especially 'Himig Ng Elehiya', sung by John Padilla, which is a heartbreakingly sad song obviously referring to the murder of Kai's father.

All in all, like some other pinoy bl-series this is not pure entertainment, a bit too much education sometimes, but very worth watching if you don't expect cinematographic perfection à la '1000 stars'.

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they caught me

Yesterday i wrote a totally different review about padayon. I pointed out all of the bad points of this series, I resisted and it took me a long time to watch, but they caught me. They REALLY caugth my attention, man this drama is so good! I mean, all the discussions were threatened in a good way, were explored in a good way, and the big companies can copy this way to approach these discussions. The story is good, the actors are pretty good, they are beautiful, have good chemistry, the soundtrack was weak, I can deny. in the first chapter maybe you wont like but the second and the rest really hit hard. I'm looking forward to a new season, they need to invest!

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An Interesting, but flawed production

I enjoyed watching this series, but at the end I felt disappointed because I don't think they hit the high target they set for themselves. They wanted to use a BL story to explore important social issues of socio/economic class, gender and identity discrimination, rural poverty, and so on. The main problem was that they had very limited budgets and not enough screen time to do this all successfully. So a lot of the social messaging came out as just preachy statements -- rather than showing viewers the problems, the characters just sat and stated their positions.

Plot: Rich kid, marooned in the country, falls in love with a tenant farm boy. That part was pretty well done; the characters were believable and the story really did a nice job of showing some of the personal traumas (Kai's father's violent death, the family's mourning, and Kai's mother's acceptance of his love choices were very touching). Andre's conversion from insensitive clod to sympathetic figure was good. However, the script had a number of abrupt transitions (e.g. when Kai suddenly fell in bed with Andre), and when Kai (who previously seemed pretty well balanced, and had no problem suddenly sleeping with Andre) became unexpectedly wracked with gay angst in the last episode.) And the end left some key points really hanging (what happens to poor Brix? Is he just cast aside?)

Acting: Pretty good. Ian Rosapapan is charismatic and his smiles made the series. John Padilla did better at being the nasty little snot than the loving partner, but he was generally believable -- I thought his self-realization at the end was very well portrayed. Yoyen Bautista was similarly believable, and I really liked his character Brix (too bad he was left twisting slowly slowly in the wind). The farm women were believable, sitting around the fire and talking, but there wasn't enough time to explore their stories -- what kind of experiences did they have that led them to talk about the discrimination they had experienced? (I think there may have been some trans characters, but that never got clarified for me.)

Production: Very low budget. A few nice outdoor scenes but otherwise the only impressive scene was the family mourning for Kai's father. That one scene was truly beautiful.

Music: The soundtrack for the series was actually very good -- putting the audio a real step above most of the visuals. John Padilla sings nicely and a couple of the other songs were quite beautiful as background tracks. The music was well chosen and sensitively used.

The Ending: The very end clearly sets up a Season Two. It seems likely to introduce a range of new issues (Andre's angry family fighting his love interest in Kai), but those risk being real tropes. I hope that the writers are given more time to explore some of the issues that were just barely touched upon in Season One. And I hope that the main characters can develop more gradually, without abrupt emotional transitions. But I have to say that I have been drawn in by the actors and I want to know what happens to their characters, so I will definitely be watching.

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One of the other low-budget Pinoy production series caught my attention this time with the story, less with its sometimes long-winded processing, repetition and stretching. Among the actors, I was particularly interested in three characters - Kai (the hard-working nineteen-year-old Ian Rosapan, Andre (John Padilla, he sang a song for the series and the film) and Drixler, perhaps also the mother, who, despite the other already weak acting performances, made it to seven for me. One , two, maybe even more trans - I didn't understand what significance they have for the story, in my opinion none and thus the viewer can think that the Philippine countryside is riddled with transsexuals in large numbers.


Jeden z dalších nízkorozpočtových seriálů pinoy produkce mě tentokráte zaujal příběhem, méně už jeho někdy rozvláčným zpracováním, opakováním a protahováním. Z herců mě zaujaly především tři postavy - Kai (snaživý devatenáctiletý Ian Rosapan, Andre (John Padilla, nazpíval pro seriál i filmovou píseň) a Drixler, snad ještě i matka, kteří to za ostatní již slabší herecké výkony dotáhli u mě na sedmičku. Jedna, dvě, možná i více trans - nechápal jsem, jaký mají pro příběh význam, dle mě žádný a takto si divák může myslet, že filipínský venkov je v hojném počtu prošpikován transsexuály.

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