Written for RAF News March 2023

Reality is folded in on itself in this playfully mind-bending Filipino drama turned pulp action romp.

Leonor (Sheila Francisco), an ageing screenwriter with a taste for violent movies, is suddenly thrust into one of her own films when she is hit on the head by a television that puts her into a coma, leaving her in the thick of an unfinished vengeance story she had just dug up for a screenwriting competition.

Now a fly on the wall, she writes the story as she goes, observing action hero Ronwaldo (Rocky Salumbides) as he aims to avenge his brother (Raion Sandoval) and save the girl (Rea Molina) from a gang of drug-dealing street-toughs. Meanwhile, Leonor’s son Rudy (Bong Cabrera) with whom she is living back in the real world, tries to comfort his mother and pay the bills, by shopping around her unfinished script.

And so the film jumps from the domestic struggles of Leonor’s family to stunt-work and high body count shootouts. What makes the film within the film so watchable is the B-movie aesthetic straight out of 70s Filipino cinema: funky bass score, and sound effect heavy fight scenes that have instant replays. 

Leonor Will Never Die is fun and inventive, able to dip into the action whenever it pleases. As novel as it sets out, it continues to get more complex as it progresses, adding layers and blurring lines of what is in the reality of the story – at one point Leonor’s family cannot find her in the hospital, only to find her in the action movie on the television.

Building to the classic genre showdown, it stays fun but gets a little greedy, piling on the self-awareness and deconstruction until it has nowhere else to go.