In the pop tradition of crowd-pleasing comedy musicals like Mamma Mia and Rock of Ages, comes I Do Bidoo Bidoo, that celebrates young love, and the hit songs of the Apo Hiking Society.
Produced by Tony Gloria, and written and directed by acclaimed “direk” Chris Martinez, I Do Bidoo Bidoo stars the Philippines’ top singing idols Gary Valenciano, Zsa Zsa Padilla, Ogie Alcasid and award-winning comedienne Eugene Domingo, along with up-and-coming bright new talents Sam Concepcion and Tippy Dos Santos.
Rock Polotan (Concepcion) and Tracy Fuentebella (Dos Santos) are teenage sweethearts, in love and full of dreams. A youthful indiscretion leads them to early parenthood, a situation they face squarely, and quite maturely, by planning to get married. They soon realize, however, that the problem behind their wedding plans has less to do with themselves than with their parents.
Rock’s parents are an oddball couple with odd professions. Pol Polotan (Ogie Alcasid) is a one-hit-wonder composer now reduced to teaching guitar lessons to neighborhood kids. His sassy wife (Eugene Domingo) has the entrepreneurial smarts to be a caterer, even if it means her clientele are bereaved families at funeral parlors. Always struggling to rise above life’s hard knocks, the Polotans (like your average Filipino family) manage to get by somehow through their keen sense of humor, resilience and resourcefulness.
At the other end of the social spectrum is Tracy’s family, the Fuentebellas. A landowner son of a retired general, Tracy’s father, Nick Fuentebella (Gary Valenciano), is a stuffed-shirt husband with more skills as a businessman than as a family man. Alienated by his passiveness and lack of ardor, his wife Elaine (Zsa Zsa Padilla) and daughter Tracy are mostly left to fend for themselves, when it comes to their own needs and problems. It also doesn’t help that Nick’s military father (Jaime Fabregas) is a closed-minded conservative with no allowances for human frailties.
When the families finally meet for the eventual “pamamanhikan” (formal asking for the bride’s hand) at the palatial Fuentebella residence, what starts as a civilized encounter between two families escalates into a hilarious rich-versus-poor mano-a-mano, a scenario that turns the mansion into a madhouse of outlandish proportions.
The ensuing family feud forces the young lovers to go through their own battles with doubt and confusion. Do they really know and care for each other? Will their parents eventually accept “the other family”? Will they say their “I DO’s” despite their inherent class differences? Will everyone be happy in the end? Those are the usual legitimate questions!...
In a movie such as this – brimming with songs, laughs, dances, and surprises, as one more variation on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, – love has of course all the answers…
Max Tessier