City After Dark, originally titled Manila by Night, is a 1980 drama film directed by Ishmael Bernal. Released at the height of the Marcos regime, the film uncovers the other face of Manila by depicting the ugly aspects of life in the city - unemployment, prostitution, drug addiction, and lack of decent housing. Considered as one of Bernal's masterpieces, it is an epic multi-narrative of people who have shady pasts and are trying to exist in an unforgiving world. The film's events take place in the course of one night, involving various protagonists and the city itself. William Martinez plays a folk singer from a rich family who becomes addicted to heroin through the influence of lesbian pusher and pimp, Cherie Gil. Martinez's mother in the movie, played by Charito Solis, is herself a reformed prostitute who, like Lady Macbeth, is obsessed with cleaning her hands to remove the dirt of her past. She does her best to be respectable after marrying an ex-cop played by Johnny Wilson. Meanwhile, Cherie Gil's character is in love with a blind masseuse, played by Rio Locsin, with two illegitimate children. Locsin lives with Jojo Santiago, whose character fantasizes of earning American dollars while working in Saudi Arabia. Another character, portrayed by Alma Moreno, is a nurse who, in reality, is a call girl. Her live-in taxi-driver lover, played by Orestes Ojeda, is fooling around with a waitress played by Lorna Tolentino, who is the presumed girlfriend of a gay couterier played by Bernardo Bernardo. As dawn breaks over the city, the bizarre lives of the characters of Manila's nightlife seem like an alter-ego of the respectable, busy daytime world. - Wikipilipinas (READ MORE)
Ishmael Bernal (1938–1996) (30 September 1938 – 2 June 1996) was an acclaimed Filipino film, stage and television director. He was also an actor and screenwriter. Noted for his melodramas particularly with feminist and moral issues, his 1982 film Himala (Miracle) is often cited as one of the greatest Filipino films of all time. He is a National Artist of the Philippines. - Wikipedia (READ MORE)
Source: Pelikulapinoy101
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