I was bitten by the Yanggaw bug. I watched Yanggaw several times over the weekend since it’s Halloween.
Yanggaw is Hiligaynon word which means attraction, inclination, to grow fond of. However, in Western Visayas folklore, yanggaw means to become infected and we usually use it to refer to a newly infected aswang, a mythical creature in Philippine folklore stories who eats the heart and liver of its victims.
Yanggaw is reminiscent of superstitions and mythical stories we hear in our childhood. Do you remember being told to go home before dusk because you might be attacked by an aswang at night? Or being told not to sleep in a stranger’s house lest they’re aswang and you might get yanggaw if their saliva enters your ears while you’re asleep?
Yanggaw revolves around a girl who got infected by an aswang and her family. What I like in Yanggaw is that it focuses less on the gruesome and it gives a human touch to an otherwise macabre story. You would end up feeling sad rather than scared after watching the movie.
The simple life of a family was disrupted when Amor came home sick after working in the city. As expected from a family in a remote baranggay, Amor’s case was consulted to an albularyo for lack of money. However, the infection could no longer be remedied and she eventually became an aswang and started victimizing local folks.
Horrible as it is, the father tried to still protect the daughter from being killed by the Tanods by keeping her chained at home. The pain of seeing his daughter in agony became too much to bear for the father and he eventually let his daughter go, against the will of his own daughter and to the shock of the other members of the family.
This kind of kinship and family centeredness is very typical of Filipinos. We will do anything and everything to protect a family member which is sometimes even to the detriment of the community. The story ended tragically when the father had to kill his daughter after finding her eating her own nephew.
Yanggaw is a good movie and something that we can truly be proud of. From director Richard Somes to the cast, it is predominantly made by Negrenses. It has received various awards including a Urian Best Actor for Ronnie Lazaro, Best Supporting Actress for Aleera Montalla and best Sound for Joey Santos and Von de Guzman.
You can say language is liberating. Joel Torre is a good actor but he is at his best in his native tongue Hiligaynon. In fairness to Tetchie Agbayani who played the role of Inday (Junior’s wife), though it’s obvious in her accent that she is a non-native Hiligaynon speaker, her acting has more than compensate for it.
Yanggaw is a Negrense masterpiece that is bound to become a classic.