Review: Kita Kita

Before anything else, I watched this movie because a lot of my friends recommended it and been telling me for a week to watch it. With all said and done, I went to the theatre today and finally watched it.

Kita Kita. The title is a play of words with the Filipino word kita or visible, and the kita which is a pronoun for you, so the title means roughly as I see you. Clever! Anyway, let's talk about the movie itself.

Kita Kita is a romantic comedy set in Sapporo Japan and a story between a not so handsome guy (he said so himself) and a blind girl (hence the title). You see, Philippine romcoms follow a tried and tested formula where in they cast the most popular celebrity couple and let them portray a boy meets girl, boy or girl has conflict with partner, a loving parent advices girl or boy, boy or girl forgives the other one and they live happily ever after. Thank God they left the dancing part in the 90's. Although the acting was sometimes superb, the story became predictable. Along came That Thing Called Tadhana. Yes we have to mention that masterpiece here if we need to point out something. That Thing Called Tadhana broke the dull trend and because of that it became a cult classic. What I'm saying is, that breaking away from the formula made Kita Kita an absolute favorite as well. Here are some reasons. One, the lead actor and lead actress are not "in a celebrity relationship" which in perspective, hard to convince that audience that these two will have chemistry, and they did. Two, speaking of cast, That Thing Called Tadhana and Kita Kita did not have a huge number of cast, heck if you analyze it, it was only the two of them you will really care in the story. The problem with some movies, they cast a lot of premiere actors and actresses but they fail to fully utilize their potential. Three, the movie is not a huge production. Yes it was shot entirely in Japan, but the locations are limited and the crew is not that large. Think about it, the more you cast a high caliber actor or actress, the more you need a crew to tend to their needs.  Four, the whole plot is not that complicated and it's not that simple. It's not that complicated because even "mama" and "tita" can appreciate it and will not get bored because we know they just wanted to be entertained. It's not that simple because like I mentioned earlier, the story may not be unique but it was a fresh take in our local industry, and it was enjoyed by critics as well. Five, Empoy. We all love John Lloyd Cruz because he's not macho like Derek Ramsey or Piolo Pascual so we got to relate with him. Enter Empoy. No, I am not saying he's ugly or not worthy to be a lead actor but we all know that he's into comedy, and one of his comedy skits involve his "funny face". Usually they cast a really handsome guy then make him "ugly" with cosmetics and all but Empoy acted just being Empoy. Even the guy with the lowest confidence can now be inspired by Empoy.

With all the elements mentioned above, this movie became another cult classic. Heck, as I watched today, the movie of Sarah Geronimo and John Lloyd Cruz is showing in theatres but Kita Kita still had a lot of audience even on its third week. The word of mouth and positive reviews made this possible and yes, it was totally worth watching.