When he died it was like losing a Jedi Master,” says a wide-eyed Sharon Cuneta, voice hoarse and on the verge of breaking, perhaps unaware of the great service she serves the documentary. In Sharon being Sharon, filmmakers Andrew Leavold and Daniel Palisa found their movie. It’s an unassuming quote—a product of wit and sincerity only true friends share (I don’t know if I’m a Luke to anybody, much less an Obi Wan!)—that accurately surmises the life and death of the gargantuan icon we know Rudy Fernandez to be: The Last Pinoy Action King.
Fernandez is best known by “Da Boy”, a moniker given to him in affirmation of his handsome features and unusual cool. James Dean comparisons come aplenty. Many years since his reign as the prodigal son of Filipino action movies, Da Boy is said, then as now, in a unisonous tone in every Filipino household—like a playsong.
The film, through stripped down confessionals of friends and family, traces back from Da Boy’s modest beginnings to his eventual rise to nationwide stardom. Leavold and Palisa do not waste time: in the space of a few minutes we are reminded that Philippine cinema is, then as now, no easy business—even for someone who came from a family of actors. Not even if your father is Gregorio Fernandez. Da Boy, we learn, waited some seven years playing small to bit parts in various films until he was cast for his first starring role in Bitayin si Baby Ama, which is a fine film and with which he earned him enough accolades that helped catapult him into fame. At the risk of sounding trite: the rest, for Da Boy, is history.
Documentaries having famous people for their subjects come in blithe spirits, much so that they run the risk of presenting a portrait almost fit for a saint. Fernandez, an icon beloved by his fans, is widely suspect to this sham of filmmaking. He was a great father, friend, a true man of his craft. Down the line the list goes: he was president of the Actor’s Guild for three terms and stood against producers overworking talents; he lived a reasonably undisturbed life with his wife Lorna Tolentino and his children Renz and Rap Fernandez in spite of his fame. The film also brings a curious query regarding his life as a would-be politician—a topic on which it doesn’t stay long. Figures. Perhaps the title speaks of a ‘hero’ who doesn’t partake in Philippine governance, one who luckily didn’t get to?
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At least to those who have also gone searching, the name Leavold serves great foresight. This can’t be about Da Boy’s would-be political career. His film’s subject, well appointed with his signature ‘stache and a world of family and friends who live in the same industry, is the pivot around which Filipino filmmaking, at least during Fernandez’s heyday, circumnavigates. The result is in the whole effective—insights from colleagues, relatives and friends (Chanda Romero, Robin Padilla, and Phillip Salvador among others) almost make for an entire oral history of studio filmmaking in the Philippines, but presents not much of it that we don’t already know.
Maybe as a joke we can cajole the Australian fellow to search for the Last Pinoy Mistress next—it being the root of the love-hate Dear Johns found in thoughtless thought-pieces on Philippine cinema—open a proper forum on an actually legitimate subject, finish what looks to form a trilogy?
Just watched the documentary-it was good-but can be better-the last parts were heartbreaking-I wished his films were dissected further. I would have finished the film with montage of his movie ads-his uniqueness among the pantheons of movie heroes were only fleetingly mentioned-a wasted opportunity indeed.