A veritable time machine. That’s what hit us when we first saw the teaser for “Manila’s Finest”, MQuest Ventures’ MMFF 2025 entry in partnership with Spring Films.
Streets, uniforms, dusty photo tones — the ’60s never looked this cinematic.
Ambitious? Check. Impossible to ignore? Double check. And in a festival where the usual MMFF humdrum often feels like déjà vu, this one actually aims high.
The finest days of 1960s Manila came to life at the grand media launch, with star-studded cast and creative team on full display.
Produced by MQuest Ventures — the same team behind MMFF hits “GomBurZa” and “The Kingdom” — and directed by Cannes Palme d’Or winner Raymond Red, “Manila’s Finest” is already fast gaining traction as one of this year’s most talked-about entries.
It tracks a string of brutal murders spreading like bad gossip through the slums of ’60s Manila. Piolo Pascual leads as Lt. Homer Magtibay, seasoned, idealistic, and carrying a city’s corruption like a backpack full of bricks.
Enrique Gil is rookie 1st Lt. Billy Ojeda — wide-eyed, naive, and about to find out that justice has a nasty habit of biting back.
Magtibay and Ojeda, with station chief Major Conrado Belarmino (Ariel Rivera), follow the trail of bodies only to uncover a deeper rot: rival gangs, illegal gambling, crooked cops, and politicians who treat rules like cheap chicharon.
“We studied the lives of police officers in the 1960s to ground the story in truth,” Piolo says. “These characters may be fictional, but they reflect real people in the past who served with passion and heart.”
In today’s Manila, the public barely trusts cops to hold their own wallets, let alone their lives. And now a film about cops? Could it muster any faith — or love — at the box office? The creators seem confident it can. How? By looking back at a forgotten past where heroism, sacrifice, and brotherhood actually meant something.
And they are showing it in style: gritty streets, authentic uniforms, and an era meticulously recreated to feel lived-in, not CGI’d.
Red puts it succinctly: “We wanted to capture Manila at a pivotal moment — beautiful, wounded, and alive. This film is about the people who kept moving, even as the city around them was changing.”
The rest of the cast: Joey Marquez, Cedrick Juan, Rico Blanco, Romnick Sarmenta, Rica Peralejo-Bonifacio, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, Kiko Estrada, Paulo Angeles, Ashtine Olviga, Ethan David, Dylan Menor, Inday Fatima, and Pearl Gonzales.
Big, bold, unapologetically Filipino, and ambitious, “Manila’s Finest” opens December 25.
