Blue Moon (2006)

Good Sentimental Historical Movie

I like seeing historical Filipino films that focus on the sentimental. Films like Moments of Love and Eternity. This film feels like on the same vibes as those movies hence I watched this one.
I like how the story of the two people from the past is seen from the eyes of people living in the present. We see how their characters and their problems related to love and even career can be similarly compared to the characters from the past. Then actors playing the present day characters, Eddie Garcia, Christopher De Leon, and Dennis Trillo all portrayed their characters well.
Eddie Garcia's character is the one connecting the present to the past. His younger version from the past is portrayed by Mark Herras. Two women admire him from the past, Azon and Cora. While it was Azon whom he loved at first, it was Cora who found him and took care of him after World War 2. He later married Cora but Cora ran away after giving birth to their son (Christopher De Leon in present times) since she didn't feel that her husband truly loved her (especially since he denied her request to dance under the blue moon with him when the conditions were perfect). Jennylyn Mercado as Cora portrayed her character's sincerity and desire to be loved by her husband very well, I thought she's really good in this. So is Pauleen Luna who portrays the livelier Azon, we see in her fun portrayal why Mark Herras's character loved her at first. I thought Mark Herras did not act as well as the two women, but he has chemistry with them both. Polo Ravales played the friend of the Mark, Pauleen, and Jennylyn's characters who had a one-sided crush on Pauleen's character Azon (who died during the war). He did good in the role though he did not make as much as an impression as the 2 female actresses.
Later in the story we found out that an older version of one of the two women that Mark Herras's character loved was still alive. Portrayed by Boots Anson-Roa, we later found out that her character was the older version of Cora/Jennylyn's character. I like Boots' acting, she has good chemistry with Eddie Garcia. Seeing them dance under the blue moon is really sweet, especially since it's the wish of Cora's character for a long time. We come to later understand that Cora was actually truly loved by her husband even though she wasn't his first love and that the graveyard visited by Eddie Garcia's character in the beginning of the movie (where he revealed that he will still look for his true love) was actually Azon.
I know that some people felt that the main male character never truly loved his wife and felt he only looked for her since he was dying already, but I thought otherwise. Since it was his wife who chose to leave after giving birth, I think he was just giving her the space that she needed. The difficulties he experienced as a single father raising his son (plus the fact that technology wasn't really developed yet) could be a reason why he didn't look for his wife after a few years. It was wrong of him never to dance with his wife under a blue moon when the conditions perfect (it led to his wife thinking he didn't love her) but it is also really possible that he never realized that he already loved his wife more than his first love until his wife had gone away.

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