The recent surge of excitement from Erik Matti’s new crime thriller, BuyBust, has done well in gracing the action genre a much needed spotlight in the Philippines. It’s an effort continued with the ongoing work of filmmaker Pedring Lopez who took hold of the festival scene a few years ago for cult action horror, Nilalang, with Cesar Montano, Meg Imperial and Maria Ozawa starring and now he’s back at it with the current production of assassin revenge thriller, Maria, featuring actress Christine Reyes in the title role.
When former cartel assassin, LILY, deliberately betrays her organization, she is brutally executed and left for dead. Unbeknownst to her former crime family, she has faked her own death and begun her new life life in seclusion as MARIA – a life suddenly cut short when the cartel learns of her whereabouts. Soon, the hunter becomes the hunted and a new fight wages on with revenge as the ultimate prize.
Joining Reyes are actor Ivan Germaine Padilla and actress Jennifer Lee along with Cindy Miranda, KC Montero, Guji Lorenzana, LA Santos and Ronnie Lazaro.
Fight and stunt director Sonny Sison, fresh from the success of Matti’s BuyBust, is reuniting with Lopez since working on Nilalang in accordance with his own concerted efforts to preserve momentum and fruition for the regional stunt community as a means of improving the industry from within.
Lopez, who is also producing Maria, will direct from a script storied by himself and principle writer Yz Carbonel, and with BlackOps’s own Rex Lopez and Jorgia Romero co-penning. Several other core Nilalang crew are getting involved including director of photography Pao Orendain (Binhi), production designer Diong Fernandez (Darkroom), editor Jason Cahapay (Binhi, Darkroom), and music scoring by recording artists Bones Frankenstein, Alvin Chan and Karl Kliatchko, a.k.a. Mr. Bones & the Boneyard Circus. CMB are shepherding cameras and grips services.
Vincent Del Rosario will also produce Maria with Maia Yambao-Lopez and June Rufino serving as supervising producers. Ava Yap is boarding the film as associate producer. Vic Del Rosario, Kelly Uy, Joed Serrano and Flor Santos will serve as executive producers.
Maria hails from BlackOps Studios Asia, Psyops8 and Viva Films with BlackOps shingle, Division, taking the mantle for post production.
