WHAT’S NEXT? – After playing blind and deaf-mute, what’s next for Allen Dizon? Well, he’s a battered husband in “Latay,” written and directed by Ralston Jover. Ordinarily, it’s the wife who’s beaten black and blue. But then Allen is no ordinary actor, open to all roles, be they offbeat or bold or drama. In time, he might even do a comedy or a horror-thriller.
But back to “Latay,” where Allen portrays a simple-minded barrio boy in a fishing village. He believes in the existence of mermaids.
He married an ambitious and ill-tempered woman who rues life in the sleepy barrio, dreaming of working abroad.
Whenever they argue, the husband ends up with bruises and bumps. She invariably says so sorry and they end up making love. But the love-hate relationship become a vicious cycle.
Producer Baby Go and line-producer Dennis Evangelista are negotiating with Lovi Poe to play the wife of Allen.
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CROSS-DRESSING – Direk Ralston says the shoot will start January 1, in time with the cross-dressing festival in Minalin, Pampanga. Men parade dressed as women. Allen joins the drag festival wearing his wife’s dress. She is irked, triggering as always physical and verbal abuse.
After the parade, the women-like men cook for their wives, the crucial test if they are good enough to exchange roles with them.
When and where do the folk tale for mermaids enters the picture. When good and bad times happen, the mermaids “appear,” including in the climatic river-boat scene. Some kind of magic realism.
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‘BAYANG MAGILIW’ – Allen Dizon is currently shooting “Bayang Magiliw” for Brillante Mendoza. His leading lady is Judy Ann Santos. Yes, a first time for the two Urian Awardees. Allen for “Magkakabaung” and Judy Ann for “Sabel.”
They play Muslim couple with a four-year child caught in the war in Mindanao. Allen plays a soldier, incidentally the actor’s childhood dream.
Will it be for Cannes, where Brillante won best director for “Kinatay.”?
“Maybe, I hope so. I don’t really know,” says Dennis Evangelista, who is Allen’s manager. Come to think of it. Dennis is Allen’s “lucky charm.”