DAYO! Watchi it :)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Animation

Different, Well made, Funny, Simple, Culture Related, Nationalism Involved, Pride of Pinoys - It is worth your money. Watch It! Support the Filipino Animators! :)

I could have given it a perfect 5 stars, but part of the script was just too "hardsell" of the sponsored product and I just don't like the idea of the Taglish (medyo malandi) speaking characters so much - although I do understand that most children nowadays just speak that way.

If there was a movie in the MMFF that I was most excited about it's BALER (which I haven't seen by the way). Kuya Dencio, who is part of Baler's production team has excited me with all his pictures and the fact that it's a Mark Meily already sold the idea of it to me. Dayo however I didn't hear much of. Sad. This movie wasn't really part of my "To Watch" movies of MMFF simply because I didn't even know that it was part of MMFF.

We started with the movie Dayo because we knew that the other movies will be a hit to most people and the idea of flocking the cinema with them just didn't excite us. Better to start with a movie that wasn't marketed that well, but seemed interesting enough. And a Filipino ANIMATED movie, how can you go wrong? It being an animated movie made me think that maybe, the movie house will still be full because of the holidays and the parents would bring their children to see movies. But it was such a sad sight to enter the movie house and see sooo many EMPTY seats. seriously?!

Dayo is very much a FILIPINO MOVIE. I love that the storyline is very simple for children to easily understand. Bubuy (the lead characted) needed to enter the kingdom of Elementalia where folklores like the Mananaggal, Tikbalang, Kapre, Tiyanaks, Syokoy, etc live to be able to save his grandparents who were eaten up by the Giant Balete Tree.

Bubuy's adventure circles around his quest to find the ingredients for the potion that will save his grandparents from the bondage of the balete tree. In his quest he meets friends, discovers things and other creatures and finds the "brave one" trapped in him. It's A WINNER STORYLINE for kids and kids at heart. I love how the usual "bad" aswangs and folklore creatures were not portrayed as their usual selves in the movie. To begin with, Bubuy's bestfriend in the movie is a young Manananggal. And the ANIMATION is No Bad at all. It was well made.

I only know of 3 Filipino animated movies - Isko, Urduja and this Dayo. I wasn't able to see Urduja but I have to say that there is just great improvement of animation from Isko which was in late 90's or was it early 2000?

Kudos to the popular stars who gave their voices for the characters, led by Nash Aguas as Bubuy, in Dayo. MichaelV and Pokwang were there for comic relief. :) Nova Villa and Noel Trinidad were lovely grandparents and lookout for Johnny Delgado too. :) And John Manzano was just so easy to spot right from the very start of the movie.

On the not so good side
*Ok, ok, they could have been more imaginative with the name of the underworld that ELEMENTALIA. But what can they do a lot of the better names have already been used by other shows and movies - Encantadia, Eteria, etc.
*Hardsell of a couple of sponsored products. Other product placements were really good and the flying around metro manila with all the billboards of the sponsors deserves a thumbs up for creativity - but a couple of products just had to get so much airtime, it ruined the movie. But it had to be done because I know they were paying well.

WATCH IT! :)