Paradise Express tells the story of Bea, a young Filipino-American (Joyce Jimenez) bored with her life. To relieve her boredom, Bea gambles, losing thousands of pesos at the tables in a single night. She meets Danny (Mark Anthony Fernandez), persuading him to join her in her less-than-brilliant plan, to pour their life's savings into a one-night run at the tables, hoping to win big. Instead they lose big, and run for their lives. Danny takes Bea to his home, to a squalid community of shanties propped up besides the city's railways; here Bea learns of another kind of gamble, that of the urban poor.
Of people whose entire lives are put at stake without their ever asking for it, who either take years to die of disease or malnutrition or who, in a careless moment, are killed by an oncoming train. Taking risks is more than just recreation for them, it's a way of life - yet they manage to live their lives and care for each other, perhaps even love each other. The "hell" of a bad losing streak in the "heavenly" luxury of a casino; the "heaven" of camaraderie and compassion in the "hell" of a squatter community - this is what Paradise Express is all about.
Roger Garcia