FINAL UPDATE: First early episodes sucks balls. Bear with it, it gets better, it gets really really better, just ignore the bad acting of some parts
All budget went to CGI, CGI was good for a filipino film but everything else was bad, acting was cringe except for the veteran actors like Dennis Trillo etc., the storyboarding and the cinematography was awful, there are scenes which the context was skipped, alot of scenes which badly executed, couple of dead air shots without sense, the sound design is extremely painful, There are times where you wont hear any sounds, the environment is silent, only voices are heard, the gun firing sounds sounds like it was just put there on top of the clip not matching the shots. Terrible ending per episode, They cut like this was a 1 Full movie and cut to episodes, there are no cliffhangers on end of episodes so far to excite the viewers for the next episode, it just randomly cuts and show credits.
I would love to give them the benefit of the doubt as this is a daily episodic series, but unlike other daily episodic series, this was given time and budget to release a finished quality product, no reason for them to release a trashy series.
I blame GMA for still getting Mark Reyes, cuz he is old school and never evolved, unlike Hollywood directors which are timeless(Scorsese,Tarantino,Spielberg etc.) Quality Films even at age 60-80.
Filipino old directors never tend to evolve in directing style, writing and etc. I hope they've given this project to a younger director with fresh ideas and relevant writing. Zig Dulay excecuted Maria Clara and Ibarra very well given the daily episodic setup, Although major scenes in MCI were not perfect, I appreciate the cinematography and the concept of what Zig is trying to send, also MCI was unexpectedly unpredictable.
I've actually defended this from other bashers during the trailer release as I was hyped and surprised about the CGI quality but got really disappointed of the finished product.
I get how foreign people support this as this is a first in Philippine Cinema, and people praise this as support, But lets be real here, Aside from the CGI, nothing was good here,. Even the ColorGrading was awful, it looked like a cheap oldschool Encantadia palette (which was very untimely now) very old school TV look very 2005-2007 GMA 7 Fantaserye vibe.
Don't get me wrong I'm all for this, but I wont be blinded and fake praise this just for the gist of it. I'm criticizing this to make sure the next one would be better. If people think this is good, then future films wont make improvements
Lihim ni Urduja was waaay better in quality/writing/cinematography compared to this. Sad to say but Kick out Mark Reyes.
PS: Changed my rating, Story picked up Pace after at episode 10 Action made up for what was lacking, even the cringe acting became somewhat acceptable in some parts. STILL Sound Design is trash, acting overall is trash, but the storyboarding improved Not sure if this will be consistent, hopefully it will. The Color palette still looks awful some scenes look like they are oilpaintings. And this Telenovela Colorgrading should be removed from TV.
Another Update: OK I was wrong but the early episodes were really trash, I must say this has gotten awesome.
