I expected more. This film was just dissappointing and uninteresting. the girl the main character falls in love with is simply terrible. she sounded as though she was reading straight from a script she had never seen before. Her overly hihg voice was more than annoying.
I found the whole subplot with the ex-thug friend stupid... the dancing was wooden... shall I continue? LOL
KNOW WHAT'S ALSO DISSAPOINTING AND GNNERALLY UNINTEESTING?
PEOPLE WHO TYPE IN ALL CAPS!!!
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Thanks for your insightful input. I am now going to seek counselling for inappropriate use of CAPS... thanks again... you may have changed my life.
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I am not a filmmmaker so I probably cannot do better.
What have that got to do with the price of bread?
If I go to the dentist and they botch up my teeth does that mean I have no right to complain because I cannot do better?
So your saying the philipino culture is stupid when you say the dancing was wooden?
That's their culture you *beep* racist *beep*
u have no insightful input so i suggest u shut the *beep*
share[deleted]
I'm glad someone on this board is talking sense!!!
shareIt's not as bad as A Sound of Thunder.
Actually this movie was'nt too bad considering it was made on a 2 peso budget.
It's so tough to get any Asian-American films out there anyway so take what you can get. If you don't understand Filipino (Or any) culture some of it may not make any sense. Do you think every non-black person understood Spike Lee's 'She's Gotta Have it' when it first came out? NOPE.
It does have it flaws BUT, it's nice to see your people's up on screen or on the TV once in a while...
i think by calling the dancing "wooden," the poster meant that the dancing was "emotionless..." NOT in the sense that Philippine folk dance on a whole is emotionless (because we all know that's far from the truth; i think our folk dances are some of the best in asia!), but i think the dancers that were used on the film were "wooden" by the poster's standards. (if i totally got it wrong, then my bad!)
shareI personally thought this movie was fine, not my fav or anything. My mom and I were dying at the end of the credits-"No animals were harmed in the making of this film-except for the three lechon". lmao!
T~O
Team Edward & Team Jacob <333
A) Don't try to expose "racism" when it isn't there. He was commenting about the movie, not the culture.
B) Thanks for sticking up for us and everything, but if you're going to do it, at least actually know something about the culture first. For example, it's FILIPINO. Filipino.. with an F. The country is Philippines with a PH, the people are Filipino with an F. An F. An F. Get it right.
I did not like the choking scene between the grandfather and the father's brother.Filipino grandparents never resort to choking even in anger.
share[deleted]
yup yup! the girl sounded like she was reading and trying to put emotions or emphasis on the wrong part of the sentences. lol!
sharealso i think the movie sucked because they just wanted it to look cool. like they added racing and "thug gangsters" and kinda over exaggerated on the american lifestyle. they just wanted to seem tyte to the filipino community thats why they focused on stupid crap and it made the movie suck ass.
shareOK people,
what story should they show about Filipinoz living abroad?????
And none of youz start anymore shayt wit me.
It would be nice for em to make a good movie that yous won't critisize.
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WTF r u on aboot?
Are there any other stories out there?
And where did you get the impression that I'm a gangster wannabe?
Ya *beep* gronk of a yank or what ever the farrrk you are!
IF I EVER SEE A CRITIC, I'M GOING TO SMASH THE LIVIING SHAYT OUT OF HIM.
lol.
The dancing was wooden? Are you Filipino? I'm not racist or anything, but if you're watching this movie and don't know anything about Filipino or Filipino-American culture, it'll be hard to understand it.
"The Debut" was also made in 1997, so what did you expect? There was a lot of "ghettoness" and the "aZn pryde" thing going on. I know from actually seeing it: I'm Filipino, my uncle and his friends acted like Gusto and his friends; but not as extreme as Gusto and his crew did.
You can tell that the budget on the movie was no where near expensive. Did you know that it took FOREVER for the producers (or whoever's in charge of this movie) to get this movie on the big screen? That's only because the movie is targeting one audience: the Filipino-Americans. I mean who's going to watch this movie? Not the White people. Not the Blacks or Hispanics. And maybe not even the Asians... but the FILIPINOS living in America.
As some of you know, as much as we hate to admit it, the Philippines is a 3rd World Country. They don't have much. And films in the Philippines don't have 1 Million dollar budgets. So yeah, it was sort of corny that it was aired in 2000. And honestly, there's a bunch of nobodys in this movie; so that's why it didn't bring attention to most.
That is The Filipino culture they're showing in that movie. So if you don't like it, don't watch it. It's funny that you spend your time going to imdb.com and writing a complaint how it sucks when you could do something more productive in your life. I'm here to clear things out.
Yeah, Joy Bisco may not be the greatest actress in life, but I guess she was good enough to land the role here. (Also probably because she was probably the only Filipino girl they could get...)
The story they're trying to tell is REALLY how Filipinos in America live. They either stick with their culture or abandon it. Ben (honestly) is a White-Washed Filipino and a Self-Hating Filipino, in the beginning. As the story progresses, he gets to understand more.
And yes, there ARE "ghetto/gangsta Asians" living around in the US. They act more or less like Gusto.
If you come from a Filipino family, that's normal, completely normal, without being related to the Ayalas (one of the richest families in the Philippines), or having any money... you'd relate to this story almost entirely.
I have some White Washed family members in the far side of my family... I live near Philadelphia, and have some family that live there; and yes, they're ghetto. My uncle's not a lawyer or doctor or anything great. He's a store manager of a department store. And yeah, my grandfather's pissed at him for not finishing college.
There's a lot of drama that goes on in Filipino families, and it's up to us to fix it.
And why do we make this CORNY movie? Because all of the races are speaking out: Hispanics and Blacks? But never any Filipinos. And this was the biggest movie; (at least that I heard of) that explains our lifestyle.
So way to go with the movie flame. Let's see YOU come up with a better movie than that. And let's see it all across the US... not just in selected theaters. Can you can do that? It's harder than you think.
Actually, Latino, African, and Asian filmmakers from third world countries are coming out with quality films that have a lot of substance and yet they don't have a budget. I think that in the case of the Debut it went a bit overboard in trying to cater to its audience and so the film really took a nosedive in terms of its quality. Rather than choosing one or two issues that really strike a chord with its target audience and then delving into those issues even further, the filmmakers just served up all of these different issues and just scratched the surface on a couple of them.
sharei agree. i also expected more especially with it garnering 70+ rating at rottentomatoes and some prestigious awards along the way. the story could have passed up the whole debut proceedings and it wouldn't matter much to the storyline being forwarded. the debut party itself actually acted as just some sort of filler. another beef is with the cheesy dialogue. who still uses "gallivanting" and "lazy child" in spoken converstation, especially if it's a confrontation?
sharemy dad used to use words like "gallivanting" and "lazy child" well maybe not lazy child, but yeah he did use words similar to that, but that's only because he didn't know other words to use. my cousins, siblings, even a coule of my friends, and i are first generation americans and we're all full filipino. there were a lot of things in this movie that happens to us and we really can relate to one thing or another. but i guess this is a little more biased seeing that i understand what these people are going through.
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