"My Big Bossing" is this year's Vic Sotto's official movie entry to the 2014 Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF). Unlike his previous movie entries, this film is comprised of three different stories!
Here are the synopses of the three stories in the movie:
Episode 1: "Sirena"
Fish-dealer BOSSING (Vic Sotto) leads a simple life with his cos-player daughter VANNA. His workload at the fishport and the fresh fish market is something he’s been doing for years on his own since his wife died. He gets along well with the people at work, and even when he’s pestered by his naughty inaanak JESSA, he’s able to put her at teasing distance.
Then one day he suddenly has his hands full when JESSA, envious of the many costumes and outfits that VANNA uses as a cos player, wishes herself to be a mermaid. Yes, a sirena.
It so happens that in this world there is a TANDANG WISHY, an old crone who feeds on the desires of children. As a malevolent supernatural, she gives out wishes and for each accepted wish she reverts to being young again and beautiful. She’s a shortcut; her recipients do not bother to reach success the hard way.
Dragging BOSSING to the public swimming pool one afternoon, JESSA surprises her Ninong with her amazing speed in swimming. BOSSING’s surprise turns to shock when JESSA’s mermaid tail suddenly appears. He demands to know where JESSA got her mermaid tale, she keeps quiet, obeying TANDANG WISHY ’s demand to keep their deal a secret, or she loses her mermaid status.
JESSA’s mermaid state leaks out. At first they’re able to explain the tail as a costume quite similar to VANNA’s cosplay mermaid outfit.
But BOSSING knows better than to expose JESSA to the world. He keeps her hidden in his house, in a container full of one part water and one part patis to ensure her mermaid ail is submerged in a salty stimulation of sea water. But the cats in the neighborhood are able to smell JESSA out. One just one cat or tw. Not merely a hundred or two hundred. But thousands of cats. Thousands and thousands of cats.
The neighborhood’s curiosity is aroused. Rumors fly.
To make it worse, the patis solution also stops working. JESSA’s scales start to flake. The little mermaid begins to flake. Blood seeps out from her lower torso, for each scale that falls off. BOSSING secretly brings JESSA off to the sea, by his regular fishport. She feels better now in seawater. And swims with great speed.
BOSSING asks her now to reveal where she got her mermaid’s tail. She initially refuses to answer. Fine, says BOSSING, then I’ll leave you here. You won’t see me anymore, not your mother.
It’s the fear of not seeing her beloved mother that makes JESSA blurts out the truth about TANDANG WISHY. BOSSING says all JESSA has to do is retract her wish.
That’s not possible, counters TANDANG WISHY, who suddenly appears, still in her young form.
Of course it is, BOSSING says, and its there that he reveals he was also once upon a time TANDANG WISHY’s victim. Out of laziness and refusal to study he had as a young boy wished for a diploma from TANDANG WISHY so he needn’t go to school anymore. He received a high school diploma, the symbol of hard work, but he also wasn’t really smart enough to go to college so he had to work doubly hard as fish dealer.
Go, BOSSING prods JESSA, you’re allowed 30 days to retract your wish. TANDANG WISHY tempts JESSA with further “get rich quick” schemes, but still in the end, it’s JESSA’s love for her mother that prevails. She retracts her wish and TANDANG WISHY is defeated and before us transforms into the old, wrinkled prune she was the first time JESSA met her.
JESSA has a tearful reunion with her mother and a promise from her Ninong BOSSING that he will train her to be a champion swimmer, no shortcuts, but real hard work and training to get to the top.
The episode ends with a swimming competition, and JESSA wins. She gets a gold medal.
Walang shortcut ang talagang gustong magtagumpay.
Episode 2: "Taktak"
VINCE (Vic Sotto), a skeptical investigative reporter/television public affairs talk show host and his Executive Producer CLARISA (Marian Rivera), are fighting to control the top-rating Instigador ng Bayan (InB).
ANGEL, a young spirit medium is on the rise, is Manila’s current cause célèbre: Is she really able to communicate with the dead? Parents switch and disguise, the mother dressing up as a man and the father dressing up as a woman, to test if ANGEL is for real, she passes such tests with flying colors and connects to departed children while in a trance, shaking all over, doing the “Taktak”. Scores of grievous parents testify about her abilities, and a series of videos secretly taped by CLARISA herself appear to support the girl’s authenticity.
Believing her to be a hoax, VINCE vows to expose ANGEL. CLARISA, on her own, tails VINCE’s investigation of ANGEL. Accompanying them are their respective assistants: MOONIE (Raul Montesa) for VINCE, and DODIE (Nico Antonio), for CLARISA.
Whether ANGEL is fake or for real, and how VINCE finds out the truth is the crux of Episode 2.
Truth is, ANGEL, while on the outside a fake and only fed information by her maternal uncle BUDOY (Jose), a hospital nursing-aide assigned to the ICU of the National Children’s Hospital, can really talk to spirits, mostly young children. And ANGEL is the friend of the spirit of the dead PINKY (CHLAUI MALAYAO), VINCE’s daughter, whose death VINCE has yet to accept.
VINCE and CLARISA discover the many things that BUDOY has done to make it appear ANGEL has powers, like rigging the lower basement of their house to shake the table and the overhead lamp when she is supposed to be having her ‘trances’. He’s also set up a smoking machine and a CD player to play ghostly music, while ANGEL performs her ‘seances’ in the living-room.
Finding this out, VINCE and CLARISA confront ANGEL in the hospital. BUDOY is exposed and apprehended.
Then Pinky appears. VINCE is enraged that his daughter is being made part of the scam, but when Pinky speaks to him through ANGEL and speaks of secrets known only to the two of them, VINCE finally believes that ANGEL is for real. He and Pinky are also able to finally bid each other farewell.
In the end, VINCE and CLARISA get married, and adopt ANGEL. VINCE loses his skepticism, now that he has another stab at happiness with a wife, an adopted daughter and another baby on the way.
All is well, that ends well.
Episode 3: "Prinsesa"
A bearded MEDICINE MAN who lives in the forests, from a time of long ago, tells his children the story of a princess most unlikely…
When REYNA BEA (Nikki Gil) is pregnant and about to give birth, her sister MARGA (Maricar de Mesa) waylays the 3 K FAIRIES who arrive to give the future monarch of the Kaharian ng Bugambilya with gifts, such as kabaitan, kasayahan and kagandahan. Before kagandahan is bestowed, MARGA stops the THIRD FAIRY and forbids her to give out kagandahan to ensure the child about to be born is not good-looking. Enraged, the THIRD FAIRY gives the unborn princess kapangyarihan of some sort.
MARGA rushes back to the Queen’s chamber, where REYNA BEA is about to give birth. The child is born, and it’s not good-looking. MARGA and husband, the DUQUE CHORVU (Niño Muhlach) imply to the HARIng LUBO (Zoren Legaspi) that the queen, unconscious after giving birth, has been unfaithful. Never mind, that for the king, his daughter is the most beautiful infant he’s ever laid he’s eyes on. Never mind that the baby has a strawberry mark on her nape that the king also has, MARGA and CHORVU stress KING LUBO out so much, he has a stroke. Then MARGA goes into labor pains and it turns out she is also pregnant and she and CHORVU scheme to have their child — especially it it’s a boy — substitute for BEA’s and LUBO’s daughter.
TORIUS (Vic Sotto), the royal doctor, hears the plan. He gives the princess to his assistant WARDO (Sef Cadayona) to spirit away. WARDO leaves.
The Prince VLADIMIR is born and BEA and LUBO are made to believe he is their son. MARGA feeds to BEA the lie that she herself, MARGA, had given birth to a baby girl but it died because TORIUS saved only BEA’s son VLADIMIR. BEA orders TORIUS arrested. TORIUS and CHORVU engage in sword-play and TORIUS escapes. CHORVU asks the PRIME MINISTER (Boboy Garovillo) permission to look for TORIUS and kill him.
But TORIUS is sheltered by the peasants of the kingdom, in the pigsty.
In the village, CHORVU encounters WARDA buying cow’s milk. CHORVU recognizes WARDO from the Queen’s Chamber and forces him to reveal where the real princess is. WARDO denies knowledge of the Princess’ whereabouts, CHORVU cuts off his tongue.
TORIUS leaves the safety of the pigsty but keeps on visiting the Princess (RYZZA MAE DIZON). We realize that TORIUS is the MEDICINE MAN, and that he has first-hand knowledge of the tale of the Princess cast out of the palace by her evil aunt MARGA and uncle-in-law CHORVU.
TORIUS sees the Princess grow up in the care of WARDO who disguises himself as the woman WARDA. The Princess is fed pigs’ milk and given to playing in the mud, mud she’s able to magically change at will into weapons or bridges or whatever, for this is the power given her by the THIRD FAIRY, the ability to make something out of nothing, while playing and being with the lowly creatures in the babuyan.
But because WARDA is mute, the name he gives the princess is misinterpreted by others, so she is known as BIIKTORIA (Ryzza Mae Dizon).
Years pass. TORIUS the medicine man has taken a wife, DIWATA, and they now have a family. LUBO is paralyzed and cannot speak, BEA takes care of their son, VLADIMIR (Alonzo Muhlach). Impatiently waiting for LUBO to die, MARGA and CHORVU are stressed when it’s the sheltered VLADIMIR who gets sick and is need of a playmate. BEA asks JUAN (Rafa Siguion-Reyna), the Captain of the Guards, to look for a peasant child who has never gotten sick.
JUAN’s search brings him to peasant leader BEBANG (Ruby Rodriguez) who brings him to BIIKTORIA, and he takes her and WARDA to the palace. In the palace, MARGA and CHORVU seethe at BIIKTORIA, but her presence does VLADIMIR good, he becomes healthy and robust.
As MARGA and CHORVU step up their plans to have LUBO declared incompetent, JUAN, WARDA and BEBANG secretly visit TORIUS in the forest. The rebels are in place eo make sure that MARGA and CHORVU do not get their way and that the truth about BIIKTORIA’s royal lineage is revealed.
On the day MARGA and CHORVU pressure the MINISTER to assign VLADIMIR king and declare LUBO incompetent, on the occasion of the kingdom’s 500th anniversary celebration, TORIUS and the peasants attack the palace. BIIKTORIA uses her powers. MARGA’s and CHORVU’s scheme is exposed when LUBO in an emotional moment recognizes BIIKTORIA and heals.
Death is demanded for MARGA and CHORVU, but BIIKTORIA gives her first command as Crown Princess and states that the parents of her friend VLADIMIR, as well as VLADIMIR himself, be merely exiled. Her first royal act is to forgive.
TORIUS exclaims BIIKTORIA — who is really named VICTORIA, after VICTORIUS, TORIUS’s real name — will make a fine queen someday. LUBO avers it is through the support of honorable men like TORIUS that the truth always comes out in the end, for the greater good.
TORIUS is knighted by the recovered LUBO.
Happiness is restored in the Kaharian ng Bugambilya.
Wow, three stories in one movie! Which of the three episodes do you love most?!
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