Review: 'Kita Kita' goes to unexpected, genuine directions

‘Kita Kita’ solidifies Sigrid Bernardo as a director who is well-versed in controlling audience mood through cinema. Her ability to concoct different set of emotions for only a minute is a difficult thing to pull off, but to do it several times on a 90-minute (or more) running time is another. There is enough charm in this film that never feels neither forced nor manipulative, it all feels genuine and absolutely endearing.

It follows Lea (Alessandra De Rossi), an overseas worker in Japan who has experienced temporary blindness as a result of undergoing emotional and physical stress. When her neighbor Tonyo (Empoy Marquez) arrived, Lea finds an unexpected connection with him and began to learn appreciating things more despite not being able to see them.

The film is very straight forward on its point, never getting to over-explain or complicate its messages. It opens a note that feels very familiar, until it goes to directions that is effectively different, filling up reasons on the probable flaws of its preceding scenes. But it stays true to itself on the way it set things in order, despite these sudden upheavals.

A fascinating inclusion of montage several times in the film seems to drag the story, but it surprisingly doesn’t end up that way. There are moments where it plays as a parody on its own, poking humor even on Filipino rom-com and Korean soap operas’ trademarks in general.

But this film would not turn as good as it was without the pairing of De Rossi and Marquez. The chemistry is shockingly great, which gets better and better when it doesn’t play out with humor. It seems the two are having a lot of fun, and it clearly shows in the scenes they were in together. The break-out star here is Marquez, who proved to be an effective talent even on non-comical moments.

‘Kita Kita’ is a film that is consistently genuine and endearing. It’s a three for three for Bernardo, whose previous narrative films ‘Lorna’ and ‘Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita’ also featured zany concepts, but eventually managed to be solid charmers.

'Kita Kita' is now showing in cinemas nationwide. Rated PG by the MTRCB.