cinema history class: the search for weng weng

Session: Documentaries, Week 1
Movie: The Search for Weng Weng (2013)
Directed by Andrew Leavold 

As I did last year for documentary month, I am temporarily abandoning my usual format.

For those who don't know of him, Weng Weng (real name Ernesto de la Cruz) was diminutive (2'9") Filipino action movie star. We actually watched one of his better movies in class early this year -- I blogged about it here. Andrew Leavold, a video store owner in Australia, was a big fan of Weng Weng's. In 2000 he decided to travel to the Phillipines to make a documentary about the actor. What Leavold didn't know at the time was that Weng Weng had died in 1992.

I'm not a Weng Weng fan, but his backstory is odd enough that there's enough fodder for an interesting story. And the fact that Leavold went in so woefully underpreprepared gave this search a kind of Magical Mystery Tour quality. This quality is strengthened by the coincidental way things happen to fall into place. For example, he went to a bar where film people are known to hang out, hoping to find people who cound help him with Wengformation. But he struck out. Then, in the parking lot he happened to run into the man who edited all of Weng Weng's films. Along the way, Leavold and his crew found themselves invited to Imelda Marcos' 83rd birthday party.

Putting that aside, there are some interesting interviews with industry insiders and Weng Weng's brother and sister-in-law. Some of the conversations touch upon the way Weng Weng was exploited and never really saw the money that he made for others. Also addressed -- albeit briefly -- is the uncomfortable fact that a big part of the appeal of Weng Weng's movies relies on laughing at the disabled man for his disabilities. But there's a big drawback -- and I wouldn't have noticed this if Christina hadn't pointed it out -- ii that we don't really get a good sense of who Weng Weng really was.

This was an interesting documentary, but it left something to be desired.