Kinatay (2009)

Kinatay (2009)
akaThe Execution of P
Director: Brillante Mendoza aka Dante Mendoza
Writer: Armando Lao
Cast: Coco Martin, Mercedes Cabral, Julio Diaz, Jhong Hilario, Maria Isabel Lopez
A young man tries to make some money so he can marry his girlfriend. He takes a job for $2,000 and then soon realizes that this job involves killing a woman.
IMDB Page
Shocking social crime drama from Philippine director Brillante Mendoza (Dante Mendoza). While training to join the police force, young twenty year old Peping joins a syndicate of corrupt police officers to earn extra money for his new wife and baby son. Only things start to get out of his comfort zone, when he agrees to do a bigger money job involving torturing (the title Kinatay means Slaughter in Tagalog) then ultimately killing a drug addicted prostitute Madonna/Gina who owes local Manila hoods big money.

The sad truth is real life is often more shocking than the over the top stylized life cinema portrays, and life sadly in some areas is cheap. Here Brillante Mendoza presents a earthy unglamorous trip into the all too realistic world of missing people caught up in crime. The lead character Peping from the very first punch someone gives Madonna until the final dumping of her body parts, is clearly uncomfortable at what he's become involved in. I suspect the director & writers aim was to put the viewer in the same uncomfortable situation and make them wonder how people can actually live with themselves after doing and witnessing such atrocities. Well worth seeking out for those with a strong stomach and who don't mind slower paced cinéma vérité/dogma styled movies, warning though as of doing this mini review the only western DVD release I could find was French language only, I was lucky enough to stumble on a English fan subtitled edition.
(7 out of 10)

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