Tagalog movies from the Philippines

In those early years of tagalog movies from the Philippines making, Hollywood invariably provided the best examples local directors could learn from. Thus, it ought not surprise anyone that genres and trends in the Philippine local industry had been set by Western feature movies. But working Filipino movies from the Philippines with outmoded equipment and hampered by low budgets, Filipino directors found themselves unable to compete the level set by Hollywood. On the most common standards of all, that of technical polish, local Philippine products could not compete against film made by a giant industry fueled by seemingly inexhaustible funds and reaching out to a international market.

There was one advantage that tagalog movies enjoyed over foreign movies. They drew their narratives and themes from the lives of Filipino people and its culture.

From the comedy, the typically pinoy action film was to develop. The dividing line in the comedy between the good men and the bad men was religion, with the Christians presented as the forces of good and the Muslims as the forces of evil in line with the propaganda of medieval missionaries. In present day tagalog action movies, that dividing line has become the law and the two sides could be two Filipino families fighting over political power or two factions warring over economic advantage. The hero is as great invincible as the gallant warrior-knight of the said tagalog movies from the Philippines and the heroine as virtuous as the pretty princess in the traditional stage play.

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