Streaming media is the way of the future in home entertainment. That has been the prevailing trend these past few years, as more viewers buy into the notion of watching what they want from the internet on demand, taking their time or binging content at their leisure. Even the Philippines got in on the act with ABS-CBN’s pioneering iWant tv over-the-top content platform, that offered either live-streams or on-demand content from the network’s wide variety of programming. Last month it was rebranded as iWant, positioning itself as a Filipino Netflix with exclusive original content, such as this steamy romantic drama.
“Glorious” is a remarkably ironic title for a new digital movie being produced by Dreamscape Digital, as part of a magnificent launch package of original films and shows exclusive only for the new iWant streaming service arriving this month. The reason for that is due to its plot of a cross-generational romance between a 20-year-old guy and a young-looking but still 50-year-old woman, portrayed respectively by newcomer Tony Labrusca and veteran (45-year-old) actress Angel Aquino.
Saturday on Philippine social media heated up to a red-hot inferno with the release of the first trailer for “Glorious”, directed by Connie S. Macatuno. It tells of the encounter of a single hot aged-50 potter who by chance meets a hunky department store clerk, and the ensuing romance between them – both its emotional highs and lows as they face increasing scrutiny and stigma for their significant age gap. And that blurb barely does justice to the trailer scenes depicting Labrusca and Aquino’s characters together.
Angel Aquino has tackled a variety of roles in a near two-decade spanning showbiz career in film and TV. While her most prominent current character is that of a hardcore crusading military general-turned-vigilante strategist in ABS-CBN’s “Ang Probinsyano”, it is refreshing to see her take on a more normal and romantic project once more. And it is a wonderfully natural portrayal of a woman grown past the ideals of young love and resigned to that fact, until she meets a man that lights up her soul despite her reservations at being with a lover young enough to be her son.
Said partner is played with quiet intensity by American-born and raised Tony Labrusca, who readily dominates every scene he is in at the trailer, with how much he invests in his relationship with Aquino’s character.
While she is rather realistic about the feasibility of their being together for a long life, not to mention the public stigma, he in turn nurtures their pairing with sweeping gestures of devotion and brazen declarations amounting to not caring at all if the world and the people turning their nose up at them would disappear, as long as they stay together. Dedicated movie-watchers would know this intensity from Labrusca well from his prior parts in C1 cable channel original “Double Twisting Double Back” and “ML” on this year’s Cinemalaya, where he plays a student doing research on Martial Law only for him and his friends to run afoul of a retired police officer who was a fanatical anti-activist interrogator-torturer of that black era.
Reception to the trailer for “Glorious” has been as overwhelmingly hot as its subject matter: 3 million views in the first three hours and 6 million views in a day. This positive turnout speaks great volumes for the success of “Glorious” and all follow-up original streaming movies and series soon to come out when iWant streaming launches its services this November.
Image courtesy of Fashion PULIS
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