Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

In a recent article by Nestor Torre in his Viewfinder column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, he writes, "For a decade now, the mainstream Filipino movie industry has languished in a deep and dismal slump, with its annual output cut down from a high of 200 features to a low of less than 50." Going by the statistics he mentioned, the Philippine film industry is indeed dying, particularly the comedy films which generated the most profit back in the day.

However, once in a while there comes a film which comes very close to disproving that claim. Last year in September, writer/director Chris Martinez gave us the enjoyable Kimmy Dora, which broke box office records nationwide. The film, the first full-length film venture of recently established film production outfit, Spring Films, was such a huge hit that when it was about to hit cable television on ABS-CBN’s sister channel, Cinema One, last March, a special beach screening in Boracay no less was held in its honor.

Now, just a few months later after the release of Kimmy Dora, Martinez is set to duplicate the feat via Here Comes the Bride which hit Philippine theaters just last May 12, grossing as much as P12 million on its first day according to a report (People who wanted to take a break from all the national elections proceedings, perhaps?) The film is produced by Star Cinema, OctoArts and Quantum Films and stars Eugene Domingo, Angelica Panganiban, Jaime Fabregas, John "Sweet" Lapus and Tuesday Vargas received a B grade by the Cinema Evaluation Board.

One can’t help but compare the two films (Kimmy Dora and Here Comes the Bride) as they are both written and directed by the Cinemalaya and Palanca-award winner Martinez, both are laugh-out-loud comedies with lots of sentimental moments and both feature the uber-talented Domingo.