Saw it tonite; a C+ plus...

I disagree. Luna was portrayed as macho, yes, but it was obvious that it was a necessity because he was in the middle of a war and he was the leader. But he loved his mother, and he loved a woman, but not as much as he loved his country.

He was also very flawed and made bad decisions because of his pride, for example not letting go of the Gen Mascardo's insults which resulted to Luna leaving camp just to prove his point that resulted to his under manned camp to being attacked by the Americans. This pride thing (hindi patatalo) is a common trait in many Filipino men even up to today.

With that said, Luna was very much a character with depth and I highly recommend Filipinos and the youth to watch it. Do not forgot the price our national heroes paid for in blood and sweat in order for us to enjoy what we have now.

C+ is about right. It is not just a one dimensional portrait of Luna, it's a one dimensional portrait of pretty much everyone. Everyone is a caricature, not a human character, from the Nazi-like Americans that kill and rape and burn, to the evil, cursing American generals that rip off lines like "Unleash Hell" from western movies, to the stereotypical traitors Paterno and Buencamino, the stereotypical traditional politician/mama's boy Aguinaldo to the stereotypical heroic 'good guys'. Nevermind that these are not just badly written stereotypes that show more what the writer THOUGHT THEY SHOULD LOOK LIKE (as opposed to what they were, as revealed by historical facts) but they really DON'T do justice to the historical heroes they purport to honor.

The first battle scene is a ludicrous fantasy that never happened the way that Tarrog pictures it - indeed very few of the historical events are anything close to what Tarrog shows and this has less to do with "combining fact with imagination" than with Tarrog not having the directorial skill to use the language and grammar of cinema effectively. The opening scenes of the Aguinaldo government and the mock battle of Manila AND the opening of the Phil-American War are shown to take place seemingly all in one day - THIS WAS A PERIOD OF NINE MONTHS (June 1898 when the Filipino patriots re-established themselves and defeated the Spaniards across the archipelago and the Americans began sending troops to the Philippines - to August 1898 when the mock battle took place - to Feb 1899 when the Phil-Am War started). Could not Tarrog have started the narrative on Feb 4/5, 1899 just when hostilities start and show the rest through flashbacks? He showed, in the Mascardo/Luna feud that he knows how to cut a film - why did he not use editing better here to show the events leading up to the Phil-American War in a more creative way? As it is, the whole thing looks like a stage play - one event, one place, cross-cut with another event, another place.

Then there's the first battle. This is apparently meant to show the Battle of Manila and the Luna counterattack. The director foregoes showing the sacrifice of Jose Torres Bugallon in favor of a random anonymous Lieutenant - nevermind that the heroic ex-Spanish Army Bugallon was so highly valued by Luna that he said he was worth several hundred troops. The inactivity of the Kawit troops is chalked up to lazy indifference and regionalistic loyalty to Aguinaldo - nevermind that the Kawit troops were reported to have been in combat during the battle and were able to take a strategic objective. The conflict between Luna and the Kawit company that would prove his nemesis is well known but not the details - the film makes a comedy out of it and squanders a great opportunity to show the essential difficulties that Luna had to face, training and disciplining what had heretofore been a rag-tag "game of thrones" collection of warlord-style 'brigades' and 'battalions' each commanded by men who had been school-teachers and local cabezas, alcaldes and landowners and still functioned (as the Filipinos still do) using semi-feudal patronage. Teaching not just the men but the officers the concept of military hierarchy, of saluting the rank and not the man, of following orders given by legitimate authority was nearly impossible and one which Luna and his ex-Spanish colonial army compatriots needed years, if possible, to inculcate. Luna even set up a Military Academy to train young officers and promising NCO's to help professionalize the army.

The Kawit troops, considered by Aguinaldo as his personal guards, would have included veterans of 1896 - men who had seen the battles of Imus, Binakayan, Zapote Bridge, Salitran, Perez-Dasmarinas, Pasong Santol and Biak-na-Bato and had lost loved ones to Spanish bullets and bayonets. How would they have felt about Luna - who had not only NOT PARTICIPATED in the Revolution of 1896 but had betrayed it, possibly being one of the reasons Dr.Jose Rizal was shot as he named names connected to the Bonifacio uprising - and the ex-Spanish colonial army officers being given ranks, command and privilege in the new First Republic Revolutionary Army? Furthermore, as Aguinaldo's personal guards, it would not have been uncommon for them to be considered at the personal disposal of the President - Napoleon's Imperial Guard was not released for command by his Marshals and Generals without Napoleon's permission and the various guard units, including the Queen's Guards at Buckingham Palace, the US Marines guarding the President of the USA, Hitler's SS bodyguard, even the modern Philippine Presidential Security Group are at the personal disposal of the commander-in-chief. The argument made by Janolino that he was at Aguinaldo's personal command would have been a valid one, especially remembering that this was a warlord-style army.

Furthermore, Luna complained that the soldiers, particularly the Kawit troops, would leave the firing line whenever they pleased to visit their families which had been placed with the baggage train. This is a valid complaint and something that Luna had been unable to remedy - possibly because Aguinaldo had allowed the Kawit families to travel with the presidential entourage and protected them as their patron. This came to a head with the train incident - in the movie, this is played for laughs with the British stationmaster but the historical record could have provided better, more human motivation for the conflict between the Kawit troops and Luna and furthermore shown off Luna's two different sides - that of a fine, European-trained physician and that of the stern martinet/disciplinarian.

The Kawit battalion families were travelling in Aguinaldo's presidential train during the retreat from Manila - these would have been families that had sacrificed a peaceful life in Cavite to stand by the President as their men served as Aguinaldo's personal guard. When Luna saw them, he saw that some of them - women and children - had been infected with smallpox, a highly infectious disease. Brandishing a horse-whip, he drove out the families of the Kawit soldiers from the presidential train UNDER THE EYES OF THE PRESIDENT AND HIS FAMILY, declaring that war is not all pleasant thoughts and desserts but sweat, blood and sacrifice. This event is taken as the start of the break between Aguinaldo and Luna in the historical record.

None of this is covered in favor of obligatory scenes and low-brow comedy.

The battle scenes are inaccurate and over-the-top heroic. In reality the Filipinos were indifferent shots, having learned from the worst European military force of the time, the Spanish Colonial Army, whose fire tactics had not evolved out of a moro-moro style fusillade that emphasized volume of fire rather than accurate marksmanship. More casualties were caused by tropical disease and drunkenness (running into the thousands throughout the year, as recorded by the US War Department) than by Filipino fire. Very few Filipinos were good shots and these were often grouped together in a squad of 'tiradores' within each company. Some, like Luna himself, Gregorio del Pilar (no he didn't need to avail of Luna's riflemen, he had his own fairly crack troops from Bulacan) and Licerio Geronimo (who apparently had an English mercenary training his troops as marksmen) were able to teach many of their men marksmanship and were able to inflict stinging casualties on the American invaders - del Pilar's riflemen held Quingua (as shown in the movie - and they didn't need Luna to save the day before they stopped an American advance led by the dynamic young cavalryman J.Franklin Bell and killed the brash, hard-charging colonel of the Nebraska Volunteers, John Stotsenberg in the process. The Nebraskans were the ones who started the war when one of their number, Private Willie Grayson, fired on and killed a Filipino soldier at San Juan Bridge so Stotsenberg's death was poetic justice of a sort - but of course this isn't shown in the film) and Geronimo's Tiradores del Muerte (Sharpshooters of Death) killed American General Henry Ware Lawton at San Mateo - again this is deeply ironic poetic justice because Henry Ware Lawton was an American hero known as the man who captured the Apache chief Geronimo, only to be killed by the Filipino General, Licerio Geronimo. In the end, Tarrog resorts to a tired old trope of having Luna mount a horse and charge crazily out into the field in full view of the American riflemen, which supposedly inspires his men to mount a charge with him - and this leads to the American general (supposedly Douglas' dad, Arthur MacArthur) calling for a retreat because "we'd lose too many men" - this is a ridiculous and pathetic FANTASY on the part of Tarrog. The American riflemen would have been happy for the chance to unload well aimed Springfield trapdoor rounds on the hapless charging Filipinos - indeed this is what happened HISTORICALLY (the Filipinos would charge and get shot to pieces by accurate American rifle fire and Gatling machine guns) but Tarrog makes up a fantasy victory for his fantasy portrayal of Antonio Luna to show that the general was 'badass'.

Altogether it's a poorly written, over-dramatized, nuance-less film, an Emperor (or in this case 'Heneral') with no clothes, that wannabe Pinoy patriots laud mindlessly for fear of being 'unpatriotic'.

"It is not enough to like a film. You must like it for the right reasons."
- Pierre Rissient

I agree. This movie was overrated... and to say it is just average is generous enough for a rating, otherwise it should be even D+, for its cinematography, scores and dialogues; the rest miserably fails.

Have to agree after giving it some thought. The story is compelling, but clearly far too many inaccuracies and ''humor' to be taken seriously. It's a shame, since this topic really needs to be covered. Few Americans are aware of this chapter, with only a few having heard/red about the defeat of the Spanish in Manila Bay, but little after. And considering the parallels with the Vietnam war (though very different politically), it's a worthy topic.