Bong (Vhong Navarro), the young manager of his auntie’s housing compound is secretly in love with one of his tenants Winona (Toni Gonzaga), who lives with her blind father, Raul. Winona is a young struggling singer who dreams of working in Japan. However all the women in her family have died before the age of 25, and the film opens just a couple of days before Winona’s 25th birthday. Bong frets, while Winona is resigned to the fact that these could be her last days.
However when the birthday passes without fatality, Winona is energized to realize her Japanese ambition. Bong - who still cannot bring himself to declare his love (the film’s theme song is the Lamont-Dozier classic You Can’t Hurry Love) - tries every ruse to stop her from auditioning for an opportunity to go to Japan, a series of events that eventually brings him to reveal his true feelings for Winona. That declaration however is not the end, but rather the beginning, of his troubles. Bong reveals that Winona has lupus, a fatal condition that could kill her anytime, and which he found out from her doctor. Winona’s anger at this revelation and Bong’s moves to stop her from going to Japan lead to a precipitous break. But the lovers make up when Winona’s condition is revealed as a mistake, and Bong is diagnosed with a fatal lung condition. However, the film has yet another twist in store…
Cathy Molina-Garcia has made a specialty of romance and romantic comedy. She has worked several times with actors like the charming and perky Toni Gonzaga, but also incorporates recurring themes and motifs in her work - the guy who lacks the courage to declare his love openly to the girl (found in perhaps her best known film Close To You, 2006), and critical moments occurring during downpours (Sam Milby and Toni Gonzaga in You Are The One, 2006) which are both reprised in this film. Interlaced throughout the film are music and musical numbers that enable Vhong Navarro to hark back to his dancing roots and Toni Gonzaga to shine (she is a well-known TV host and singer with several hit records).
At a level of discrete segments, the film is a somewhat interesting study in what might be described as selfish narcissism. All of Bong’s actions sans twists could be seen as the acts of a selfish and self-deluded personality - telling the Japanese auditioners that Winona is a man, and so obsessed with Winona’s impending demise that he forgets to pay the housing compounds electricity bill, plunging all his tenants into blackout. Winona too exhibits, at least at the opening, strong strains of narcissism (she is convinced that she will not survive her 25th birthday) rather than sentiment. Given the make-up of these two personalities, the twist ending is perhaps not so surprising and the title could be interpreted as indicative of this manic self-love.
Roger Garcia