Summary
A brutal and bloody feature-length gang fight that never loses its intensity, although it occasionally loses the plot.
WE WILL NOT DIE TONIGHT might be Richard Somes’ third feature collaboration with actress Erich Gonzales, but you couldn’t find a more different role than their TV work on romantic drama Maria la del Barrio. A visceral movie-length street brawl, it’s a little bit like a Filipino version of The Warriors.
Kray (Gonzales) plays a stuntwoman who is getting no respect from her current boss. When her old gang encourages her to do a drug run for easy money, she reluctantly goes along. However, she soon finds out that the crooks are actually running kids as contraband. A bloody fight ensues, and soon she and her friends are on the run for their lives
The opening scene of Somes’ film sees Gonzales running for her life à la Run Lola Run. It’s a fake-out, with Kray on the set of her latest film, but it marks the intensity with which Somes frames the majority of his film. After some perfunctory getting-to-know-you scenes, the movie switches into a full-tilt boogie that doesn’t let up for the remainder. Angry, sweaty chases are punctuated by machete fights, beatings, and confrontational posturing between Kray’s friends and the rival gang.
Yet the dial can only be turned up to 11 for so long before one starts to crave a few pieces of fruit with their candy. An hour into the beating drums of relentless brutality, bare-knuckle dust-ups, and rampaging ruffians, you wonder how the film could possibly have another 40 or so minutes left in it. It all builds to a series of one-on-one fights that reduce Somes’ positive energy into bite-sized chunks.
Shot with a fiercely low-budget approach, Somes wants to convey intimate realism, and on this level he achieves his aim. The barely choreographed chaos plays out against competing music on the soundtrack, as if two separate metal videos were trying to bust out of screen in the middle of filming. If anything, by the midway mark it’s difficult to know who or what is going on anymore.
Despite these misgivings, WE WILL NOT DIE TONIGHT has the kind of energy that will undoubtedly develop a cult following. Kray’s final monologue is a cheesy piece of Final Girl dialogue: “I am Kray. Woman. Fighter.” It is meant to evoke a sense of empowerment, but in a film where the threat of violence is only met with more unrelenting violence, it only serves to remind us that the film never really developed beyond a five word synopsis.
2018 | Philippines | DIRECTOR: Richard Somes | WRITERS: Richard Somes | CAST: Erich Gonzales, Max Eigenmann, Sarah Abad, Paolo Paraiso, Thou Reyes, Jeffrey Tam | DISTRIBUTOR: New York Asian Film Festival (US) | RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 29 June 2018 (NYAFF)
