Heneral Luna (2015) on Netflix
During the Philippine-American War, General Antonio Luna leads the Philippine Republican Army. Cabinet members want an alliance with the Americans, and his own officers defy his orders.
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- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/102,842 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Plot summary
Spanish colonial rule over the Philippines ends, and Spain secretly sells the islands to the Americans. At a cabinet meeting in Malolos, Felipe Buencamino and Pedro Paterno urge an alliance with the Americans, while General Antonio Luna and General José Alejandrino prefer to fight. President Emilio Aguinaldo tries to negotiate control of Manila, then learns the Americans have taken the city. After a clash between American and Filipino soldiers, Aguinaldo begins a resistance. Luna and his trusted officers campaign against the Americans and meet setbacks. When the Kawit battalion refuses his order for reinforcements, Luna humiliates and demotes its commander, Pedro Janolino, and declares that soldiers who disobey him will be executed on the spot.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Heneral Luna (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- E. A. Rocha and Henry Hunt Francia wrote the first draft of Heneral Luna in 1998, after Cirio Santiago hired them to write a television script for the centennial of Philippine independence. Their script became a feature, was shelved for seventeen years, and Francia died before the film's release.
- More than half the theaters that premiered Heneral Luna on September 9, 2015 pulled it within five days, leaving only 40 of the 101 original screens. A clamor from netizens and artists brought it back, and packed cinemas followed on its first weekend.
- John Arcilla got the title role of Antonio Luna after director Jerrold Tarog was impressed by his work in Raymond Red's short film Anino and the feature Metro Manila. Jericho Rosales also auditioned for the general and was cast as Manuel L. Quezon in the planned third film instead.
- Visual effects company BlackBurst Inc added the ships in the scene of the Americans arriving in Manila entirely digitally with Autodesk Maya; that single effect took the entire production timetable.
- Philippine schools came under criticism after young viewers, including one at a Q&A with actor Epy Quizon, who played Apolinario Mabini, asked why the paralyzed statesman never stood up in the film. President Benigno Aquino III called it a reflection of how little some of the youth know about history.
- The film shows the Filipinos winning the Battle of Santo Tomas when in fact the Americans won it, suffering only two casualties. The man who saved Luna after his horseback charge was not Colonel Román as depicted, but Alejandro Avecilla.
- Jerrold Tarog said the name of Isabel, Mylene Dizon's character, is a wink to conspiracy theorists who connect Antonio Luna with Ysidra Cojuangco, whose family fortune is said to come from revolutionary money Luna hid. Tarog found no evidence of such a relationship.
- Co-producer Fernando Ortigas said that if he had received the Heneral Luna script a week earlier, he would have junked it, because he was not in a good state of mind to work with films at that time. He said the script arrived at the right time and he enjoyed it.
