Christopher de Leon explains dilemma of directing Vilma Santos

The romantic drama “Once I Met You in Tokyo” was initially meant to be shot in Italy, however “Japan is so colourful and photo-worthy,” based on its lead actor Christopher de Leon, who can be the movie’s affiliate director.

Christopher defined that their crew really went past Tokyo, “[We needed] to shoot some scenes within the stunning countryside. This was purported to be in Italy, the place a number of OFWs (abroad Filipino staff) reside. However we realized that we are going to simply be seeing the identical issues. Japan, however, is so colourful due to the cherry blossoms. There, each season has its personal colour. The flowers are completely different. The fields, the fruits and timber are additionally completely different, relying on the season,” he informed reporters over dinner lately.

“The Japanese tradition may be very a lot completely different, too. Additionally, if we simply stayed in Tokyo, we wouldn’t have the ability to see most of those, so we shot within the outskirts the place we met some farmers. We even have scenes that function them throughout harvest season,” mentioned Christopher.

As an final result, Christopher mentioned he and main woman Vilma Santos additionally needed to memorize lengthy strains in Japanese, or Nihongo. “My character is meant to have a number of Japanese associates as a result of he has been dwelling there for some time. One time, Vi needed to shoot a scene together with her talking in Nihongo. Sadly, she needed to do a number of takes. After doing her third take, she sat on the ground and mentioned, ‘Ayoko nang mag-Hapon!’ She obtained it will definitely,” Christopher recalled.

MMFF entry

“Once I Met You in Tokyo” talks of unconditional love, sacrifice and growing older from the angle of two aged staff. Type-hearted Azon (Vilma) meets Joey (Christopher), a divorcee who nonetheless harbors the scars of his ex-wife’s infidelity. It’s an official entry to the 2023 Metro Manila Movie Competition (MMFF), which can begin on Christmas Day.

Christopher defined that a part of his work as affiliate director was “to method Vi and inform her what to do when the opposite two administrators (Rado Peru and Rommel Penza) are too shy or intimidated to do it. How do you inform somebody like Vilma Santos that you just discover her performing in a single specific scene missing and that she has to do it yet again? How do you clarify to her that that you must see this specific emotion from her? How do you name out to her if you wish to ‘lower’ a take? That’s what I used to be tasked to do,” mentioned Christopher, who has been doing motion pictures with Vilma for the reason that late Seventies.

In the meantime, Vilma mentioned she personally requested for Christopher to be the affiliate director, including that she even threatened to not do the mission if the latter refused. She defined that, as a former Batangas consultant, she took a break from making motion pictures for six years, so she anticipated that there can be instances when she wouldn’t really feel too assured performing in entrance of the digicam.

PHOTO FROM JG PRODUCTIONS/ YOUTUBE

Motivation

“I mentioned I’ll want any individual I’m snug working with who will assist me really feel motivated in the course of the shoot. Each time Yetbo (Vilma’s pet identify for Christopher) would direct me, particularly after we have been already capturing the ending, he would additionally cry or develop into teary-eyed whereas exhibiting me how I ought to ship my strains. We’d get so carried away by the feelings of our characters, typically. It’s a plus issue for me that Yetbo is directing and guiding me. He would additionally inform me at any time when the digicam would do a closeup and once I would want to make fewer actions,” Vilma recalled.

In accordance with “Once I Met You in Tokyo” producers Rowena Ramaji and Rajan Gidwani, Christopher is so hands-on that he personally picked the film’s theme music, Apo Mountain climbing Society’s “Once I Met You.”

“We known as up Jim Paredes in Australia to ask how we might go about utilizing the music for the mission. You’d suppose we have already got an incredible singer in Darren Espanto, who’s a part of the solid, but it surely was Christopher who recorded the theme music. I noticed him give his all to singing it,” mentioned Rajan. The music was composed by Jim and Nationwide Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab, and sung by Danny Javier.

“Each line of the music tells the story of ‘Once I Met You in Tokyo,’” mentioned Vilma. “We additionally mentioned that, since we’re all experiencing exhausting instances, we wish our story to be one thing that may make its viewers really feel completely satisfied, to make them kilig. For those who return to the movies that Christopher and I did collectively, our characters have been at all times combating and hysterical. We’d have confrontations. There was at all times a 3rd celebration. Right here, there’s none. The story is extra on how the love between Azon and Joey was shaped and the way they’d face challenges collectively afterward.”

She continued: “It’s additionally about forgiveness and second probabilities—for his character—in addition to the experiences of OFWs who labored so exhausting overseas solely to find that the cash she has been sending all these years weren’t put to good use. That’s my character. It additionally tries to ask the query: At our age, can we nonetheless fall in love?”

Christopher agreed by saying, “We made positive that our film can be a love story about individuals our age—of people that simply forgot about romance and selected to focus solely on work. Consider it or not, there are individuals in related conditions.”