How to watch: Netflix(with membership)
Run time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Starring: Cristine Reyes
Director: Pedring Lopez
Writer: Pedring Lopez
Rating: R
Release Date: March 27, 2019 (Philippines)
Style: Action, Martial Arts, Filipino, Violent
You can find more information about this movie on its IMDB page.
I don’t know if excited is the right word for how I felt going into this movie. Anticipation is a better fit. Some of the people involved in this film were also behind 2018’s Buybust. Buybust is a controversial film but it is ambitious at its core. I felt good about seeing another big action film out of the Philippines. Buybust left me completely dumbfounded, not sure if I liked it or hated it, but there was surely a lot to like. Could Maria win me over where its predecessor could not?
Overview
Maria seems like your average housewife. She wakes up in the morning to make her husband and daughter breakfast. She sees her husband off to work before taking their daughter to school. Just a completely normal mother and wife… oh except that she’s a retired assassin for the Filipino Cartel. After refusing to complete a mission, she fakes her death. She thought she made it out for good, but upon being discovered the family she made is taken away from her. From that point on revenge is all she can think about.
Story Review: 4.8/10
Revenge is a completely acceptable motivator to drive a story. It is the basis of a vast majority of martial arts films. But it is hard to get behind a character wanting revenge when the audience is hardly familiarized with the character. This film immediately introduced us to the titular Maria along with her husband and daughter. We are given a glimpse of her past as an assassin, but it is barely explored past a 45-second flashback. Some time is spent showing her bond with her family, but it is hard to feel anything when the husband cannot shut up about some politician and the daughter says seven words.
The antagonists are introduced interrogating a man before executing him and complaining about a politician meddling in their business. They discover that our protagonist is still alive by just seeing her in public. From that point on they completely forget about their goal of taking out a politician and they focus on her.
This whole politician thing really pisses me off. In the first 30 minutes of the film Maria’s husband is obsessed with this politician, he literally never shuts up about him and Maria brings this up to him. The Cartel discusses handling the politician. As soon as Maria is discovered by the Cartel this whole A or B plot about this politician is completely dropped and never brought up again. Instead, it is traded for a C plot about infighting among the Cartel Members, but who gives a damn when one can’t act, one keeps yelling, and the leader is about as wooden as Bruce Willis in a straight to DVD cash grab.
Martial Arts Review: 5/10
The action here is completely fine. The star of the film, Cristine Reyes, is trained in mixed martial arts and she trained hard for this film as well. It absolutely shows through in some well-choreographed action sequences. She does a fantastic job with the opportunities given but even the best moments are halted by questionable editing. There are glimpses of something special within every fight but that is all they are, glimpses. The action is fast and bloody. There is no shortness of brutality in the action, but it is missing something. The film thinks it is being ambitious with its action, but it only gets so far before hitting the floor.
Conclusion
Overall: 4.9/10
I love that different countries are coming out of the woodwork showing a passion for action film making. Before 2003 no one would have gone to Thailand for martial arts films, despite Panna Rittikrai making some admittedly brilliant movies before. Until 2011 I would have never checked into Indonesia for great film making. I do not think that the Philippines has made its mark on the martial arts world yet. Buybust was a strong film that fell short for a lot of people and Maria feels like an empty slate with some alright fight scenes.
The time will come for the Philippines to announce itself to the world as Ong-bak, and The Raid: Redemption did for their countries. I have faith that they will meet or even pass the bar set by those countries, but this film falls far too short to accomplish that goal. I am very excited to see what comes out of the country in the coming years.
What did you think of Maria? If you haven’t seen it head over to Netflix then come back and share what you think. When you’re done click the link to see me review the film on my youtube channel Martial Arts Film Freak. I went into a much different perspective of this film.
Maria
The Good
- Choreography
- See #1
- Seriously that's pretty much it.
The Bad
- Story structure
- Characters
- Acting
Check out my Youtube channel where I review and discuss martial arts films.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUYUbj1Rjnf07S3UbVvKZ0Q?view_as=subscriber
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