jgal:
“Looks like action star and senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. wants to beat Hollywood movies to a pulp. If he had his way, the current onslaught of Hollywood movies in the Philippines would be reduced to one movie per month, reports Inquirer.net. “We should set limits, like what happened in South Korea.”
In the 1960s, Korea enacted the Motion Picture Law that “blocked free importation of foreign films” under the foreign film import quota system. It was meant as “a support measure for Korean films,” according to pages of Korean Cinema: From Origins to Renaissance posted on the Korean Film Council website.
However, Revilla added, “A lot of people would react negatively and I know it’s against the GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade].”
Revilla suggested the drastic proposition when asked a hypothetical question about Hollywood movies being shown during Christmas time, which is usually reserved for the Metro Manila Film Festival. “How else can we revive the local movie industry if we give up the holiday play dates? The rest of the year, Hollywood movies beat local productions at the box office.”
Revilla stars in one of the Metro Manila Film Festival entries this year, Ang Panday, which he also produced. “We have somehow perfected the use of special effects… We want to show the whole world that Filipinos can make films like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings,” Revilla told Manila Bulletin.”
I don’t think limiting Hollywood films would revive the local movie industry. Making films that are actually worth seeing would revive the local movie industry, and we don’t even need to make Hollywood-like films (they’re a gazillion miles away ahead of us, for Christ’s sake!) If only we can have year round of Indie Films… at least most of those are worth something. Let’s get the fundamentals right and build on that shall we?
wth bong revilla. seriously?
