We talk to director Andrew Leavold about his search for Filipino pop star, actor and a living saint Weng Weng…
How’s London been treating you so far?
I’ve been here for just over twenty-four hours, but I was here before heading to the continent. We did a European premiere (of The Search for Weng Weng) in Italy at Udine Far East Film Festival, followed by nine days back-packing in Spain to wait for Cannes, where we went to try to sell the film internationally. We did a market screening. I spent the whole twelve days walking around with my Weng Weng t-shirt (which he is wearing now), going, “please come and see my film about a midget James Bond from the Philippines!”
Was it much success?
According to market screenings, it was a roaring success! People actually stayed until the end and even applauded! I was just sitting there, going “please do not walk out! Please do not walk out!” And they never did! They all dug it! That would be, in the words of Agent OO, “mission accomplished!” (imitates Weng Weng’s voice)
But did Weng Weng himself, actually, accomplish his mission?
He was a novelty hit, which means his star did not shine very long or very hot. With Weng Weng doing so well internationally, the Philippines were able to make their own productions and take them to Cannes. Weng Weng was very much a pioneer as far as Filipino cinema is concerned. And a minor pop culture celebrity for that very short period of time; for twelve months in 1982 he was dancing with the stars, flying to Cannes and even Los Angles Film Market. He was everywhere! His films were sold globally. But then, by 1983, within twelve months after For Y’ur Height Only (1981), he was living back in his slum and had been pretty much forgotten.
I wonder why wasn’t he picked up by foreign producers whilst at Cannes or LA?
There was talk around Manila International Film Festival in January 1982 that he might do a film in Germany or Hong Kong, but it was all talk and no one ever followed it up. Within six months after Manila Film Festival all of that heat had died. And those producers, who were willing to take him up as their action star, had forgotten about him and moved on to the next thing. That is the nature of pop culture; unless you have an act that can keep himself going, keep himself fresh. This is the great tragedy of Weng Weng: he was picked up, shone around like a STAR and almost immediately dropped down. Besides, he did not see any of the money that was generated by international sales. He was just an actor.
You grew up in Amman, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, and then moved to Australia. Where does this idiosyncratic interest in Pinoy cinema of yours come from?
I lived abroad from 1974 to 1983. In the middle of all that came Betamax. Back then, as there was no product, video shops in the Middle East would videotape the cinema screen in England or America. The cinema screen would then be duplicated to video shops. Sometimes you were watching a copy of a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy of a BAD filming of a cinema screen. Such strange way of consuming film as a child! Also, the choice of films was determined by what was playing and what was circulated around the video shops. Most of those films were kung fu movies not even dubbed into English. They were mostly in Mandarin, Cantonese or Arabic with English subtitles. I was watching some strange stuff! Probably, stuff I have not seen since and would never want to see again. A good percentage of what I was watching were European horror films, American biker movies, and Hong Kong or Taiwanese kung fu films. Then came Weng Weng… and it was something that I had never experienced before! First film with Weng Weng I saw was For Y’ur Height Only, which was a copy of a copy, of a copy, of a copy. It was an experience I had never had before, where I watched the screen and I could not believe what I was watching! There was nothing to pin that film on! It was a freak show starring a child, who could do black-level belt kung fu. Just incredible! And so I though, surely, this thing could have emerged from a vacuum. It must come out of some kind of Filipino film culture! So I started digging. The further I dug, the more films I found, that could be traced back to For Y’ur Height Only. The film no longer seemed so alien. It became a part of a much broader film culture, which had ties to Hong Kong (because it was so close to it and the Philippines had such a significant Chinese population) and Japan (where karate films first emerged). When I dug deeper, I found out that some of the actors in For Y’ur Height Only had previously done between four hundred to eight hundred films each. And that, at the time the Philippines had been making three hundred films a year on average, most of which were action films. This stuff was a revelation to me! So, while the Pinoy film culture gradually obtained clearer image, Weng Weng still remained a mystery to me. Back then. no one knew his name, no one knew where he had come from or how many films he had made, noe what happened to him; whether he was still alive or not. That was the central mystery to me that started the search for Weng Weng. I thought that, if I wanted to know Weng Weng’s story, I’d need to go to the Philippines and start to dig! And I found out on my first trip that it was not so easy. People had either forgotten the story or preferred not to recall it, because they were somehow ashamed or embarrassed about Weng Weng’s story…or even guilty of Weng Weng’s faith. Eventually, however, I ran into this one guy at a parking lot. We exchanged names. He mentioned that he was an editor. I mentioned the purpose of my visit to which he calmly added, “ah, Weng Weng! I edited all of ten of his films!” And I said: “WHAT!!? His films? There were ten of them?” And from that moment onwards I started to find more people related to Weng Weng, who gave me their little piece of evidence, which eventually formed a complete picture of Weng Weng’s story. It had become a detective story.
What were the strangest places the quest for Weng Weng brought you to?
A religious cult leader’s compound. On the main highway of Manila there was this “Earth Moving Company” that had fenced themselves off from the rest of the world. We were previously invited to come to what Weng Weng’s co-stars called a “cocktail party”. And we thought, “ah, yeah, free booze! Why not?” So, Danny, my co-producer, Big Jim (Weng Weng’s co-star) and I, went to the party hoping to get some free booze. When we got there, we found out that they had excavated an enormous lake in the middle of this compound that was located just ten meters away from the busiest street of Manila (EDSA). So, there we were, in the middle of a city next to a fake lake in a bamboo hut. First person we noticed upon our arrival was the most celebrated Filipino action star’s, Fernando Poe, Jr.’s, brother. When I went upstairs the bamboo hut, I found a magazine that the company occupying the land had put out. On the front cover there was a picture of Fernando Poe Jr., recently deceased action star, and pictures of the thirteen ex-presidents of the Philippines, forming a halo. Inside the magazine, there was also a talk about that time current president Gloria Arroyo being Satan’s emissary on Earth. Apart from that, they would describe how Fernando Poe Jr. was meant to come out of the clouds in a flaming chariot as the second coming of Christ. I am reading that going, ” this is not good! This is not good! This is not good!” When Danny and Jim walked up the stairs, they said, “dude, you’re white as a sheet. What’s wrong?” Needless to say, I declared that we were in a cult or the first church of FPJ (Fernando Poe Jr.). All we wanted to do from then on was to see how weird it gets! So, we are on a hut in a middle of a fake lake with FPJ’s half-brother Conrad Poe, and Jim goes: “you’re not the high priest of this cult, are you?” to what Conrad responds (whispers): “they’re, they’re funding my next film!” After that Jim declared Conrad to be cool and we all sat down to drink neat brandy out of two liter bottles with all these SOS/devil/stunt guys, who all had been co-stars of Weng Weng. All of a sudden I turned around and noticed that the CEO of the “Earth Moving Company” had started his ceremony. For the next forty-five minutes he preached to all of the stunt guys, who were sitting in front of him, about how Satan’s emissaries on Earth will be massacred by the great FPJ. Danny and I were just there, going “WHATTAA!?” and turning towards the lake to laugh. Everyone else was just repeating, “yes” to whatever he preached, as they were on the payroll. But then, all of a sudden he declared that it was karaoke time. So these two girls in matching outfits came out of the backroom, turned on the karaoke machine and started singing and dancing. CEO was just sitting on his plastic chair in front of them, going” YESSSH! YESSHH! BRILLIANT!” (slaps his thighs) I suggested to Danny that the only thing we could do at that point was more karaoke! So, we went up to the girls and asked them if we could have the next song- Scorpions’ “Wind of Change”. Reluctantly they let us take over and plugged in the cable. I had just gotten my tattoo of Weng Weng done that day (bares his left shoulder), Danny had extremely long hair and looked like some sort of a heavy metal roadie, and together we softly launched into “Wind of Change” (sings) “TAKE ME TO THE MAGIC OF THIS MOMENT!” For some reason, these lyrics were registering with the CEO. He was sitting there and listening to EVERYTHING and going, (screams) “YESSHH! THERE WILL BE A WIND OF CHANGE! YESSH! At the end of the song he later came to us and embraced us, hoping we would “take the word of FPJ and bring it back to Australia”. We were so drunk by this stage (as we had been drinking straight brandy for two hours), that we actually took his autographed book back home. I still have the book and I have even read it!
So you would say most of the Filipino cult stars are involved with the “earth movers”?
No. The stunt guys and some other actors were clearly on a payroll, waiting for their paycheck to arrive. However, maybe some of them were actually interested. In the Philippines they are very much into miraculous acts of faith. It is a peculiar brand of Catholicism that involves visions and miracles and laying of hands and all that sort of thing. It is a very charismatic approach to Catholicism. So FPJ coming out of the clouds on a flaming chair could and would totally appeal to some of them. And for the same reason, Weng Weng, being what it would be considered to be a miracle-birth, was also considered a living saint. In his neighbourhood he was seen to be the living incarnation of Santo Nino (de Cebu), the little child-Christ. Every year Weng Weng would be dressed up as Santo Nino in a flowing robe with a huge bejewelled crown and be paraded around the area. People in the neighbourhood would see this as an act of faith. Tiny, little Weng Weng was delivered to them through a miracle-birth, so that he could be a living saint here on Earth. They would touch him, lay his hands on him… There is no footage of that, but we went to the church where Weng Weng’s mother used to pray. In the church, there is an enormous fresco of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. It is an iconic figure within that kind of redemptive Catholicism. This is not actually in the documentary; according to the legend of this particular church in Baclaran, those mothers who are pregnant with a child and continually feel the urge to pray at that particular fresco, usually loose their children early. The fact that Weng Weng’s mother would go to the church every day to pray at the fresco, yet he would survive, meant that it was a miracle. This baby, being no bigger than a coke bottle, survived in shoebox for six months. Hence, the locals saw his survival as a miraculous act of God. That continued throughout the rest of Weng Weng’s life. There was something otherworldly about him! People would instantly fall in love with him. He was not so much of an object of ridicule, as he was considered to be a living saint.
What are your feelings about the conclusion of your search for Weng Weng?
The day I found him was very strange. Up until two days before I did not even know Weng Weng’s name. I had no idea when he was born, what happened to him after his film career stopped, or where he was… That morning, however, I got a text from a guy who found the director of For Y’ur Height Only, Eddie Nicart, for me. He then said, “I have found his brother!” I realised that there and then I had Weng Weng’s story. We immediately drove to Pasay, yet another really poor part of Manila. I walked into a tiny little house and there, face-to-face with me, was a five feet five version of Weng Weng- his only surviving brother. I was just awestruck! He was the only person, who could actually tell me the story. At once, he presented me with his birth…and death certificates. He told me everything about his life as a star and return back to the slums, as well as his death. He then explained to me that Weng Weng had been just a kid, who had a mind of a nine-year-old, who could not do any work, could not function in the adult world, and all he did was play with the neighbourhood kids. Then he got so ill that he passed away, forgotten.
Then his brother took me to the house where Weng Weng was born, and died. I met all of the neighbours, interviewed them on camera, looked at his pictures from grade one. He went to school only for a half of the grade one! Later I was driven to the Pasay City cemetery- home to over three hundred cemetery-dwellers, who live in, on, and between gravestones. We walked through the dwellers into the graves and finally I was able to make out Weng Weng’s name. The physical act of going as close as possible to the object of your obsession; to actually put your hand onto the grave and get as close as you can to that object of your obsession…that in itself was the most powerful singular idea I have ever experienced. It was completely overwhelming, empowering and at the same time incredibly humbling, because you have set yourself a seemingly impossible task and you have seen it to its conclusion- the arrival to the desired object. I was so affected by the humanity of Weng Weng’s story. He had become a lot more fragile character than the karate kid I had seen fifteen years ago. When you realise that you are able to make manifests out of air and embark on adventure that takes you to successful results; that single moment changes you. Not being religious, this is the closest I have ever been to a spiritual moment; you are not quite sure what it means, but you are aware that it has affected you to your inner core. You are then no longer able to look at the reality the same way, which I guess is what a quest is meant to do. For better or worse, here I am now. It does make me believe that you do kind of create your own reality!
What about your team? How many people were involved in making The Search for Weng Weng?
I did most of it by myself equipped with a Canon microphone and a Sony mini camera. So, that was the largest bulk of the footage from first stages of my quest. Once the Kickstarter.com campaign had been successful, I was then able to go back and shoot series of HD scenes, which then were used as wrap-around footage. At that moment we also had a professional cameraman to work with Canon C300. We were four at most. Some minor parts were also filmed on an iPhone. We literary used whatever we could find at the particular moment and place, which is the very definition of guerilla filmmaking. Luckily, there is enough HD footage (from 2006-2007) to make you forget the rest.
You have also made an audio-visual lecture on Filipino cinema titled Bamboo Gods and Bionic Boys: A History Of Pulp Filmmaking In The Philippines, which you presented at Cinemanila. What was the reception of your project on Pinoy cinema in the Philippines by the locals?
At first they were baffled; someone from Australia was telling them about their history. Particularly, about the part of their history they were a little uncomfortable about. The B stuff is not something the general crowd would be proud of. I kept going back to Manila and establishing connections with influential filmmakers and academics, who appreciated my work and invited me to lecture at their schools or universities. I ended up teaching Filipinos about their own cinema. They knew that I was not only a filmmaker, but also an academic. Thus, I gradually took on a voice of authority. I even ended up submitting my PhD in Filipino B film history at the start of this year. That was one of my missions! I have been offered a teaching job in Manila. Two, actually. And the other mission was to tell a story about a star, who was genuinely exploited- Weng Weng. The Philippines should be ashamed of forgetting him!
So teaching Filipino B film History at universities in Manila is your future plan?
I do not know. It really depends on The Search for Weng Weng success at Cannes. The other project I am pitching at the moment is called “Film Safari” and it is almost like the idea of Weng Weng’s project, only on a global scale; looking at new technologies in the most far out places and seeing how they create new markets. I am interested in places like Afghanistan, Libya, countries that have recently been under a dictatorship or where the dictators themselves made films, like Cambodia and North Korea. We are currently pitching a plan to the Australian TV to film a series of TV documentaries; six episodes on six different themes that will allow me to just go into the strangest hotspots and frontier towns across the world. I am excited to go on a new dig and see what is happening in the world! But for now all roads seem to still lead to the Philippines. Terracotta this year has done a great job focusing on Pinoy cinema! The Philippines is a country that is definitely worth exploring. It has got such a great, untapped wealth of filmmakers and writers, as well as cast, and crew. They are just waiting to be rediscovered and all they need is an international push.
The Search for Weng Weng screened at Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2014.