Darna – review

Director: Joel Lamangan

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

Darna is a long-standing Filipino superhero, though I went into this film cold, knowing nothing about the character. She was a reboot of artist Mars Ravelo’s earlier Varga character and I could see elements similar to Shazam/Captain Marvel in that, whilst he has to say his name to become Shazam, Narda must swallow a mystical stone and say the name Darna to become the superhero. There are also elements that are reminiscent of Wonder Woman, particularly in this film when she deflect bullets with her bracelets. But with all that said she is her own character and is popular in the Philippines.

the medallion

The film starts in South America in 1900 as explorer Dominico Lipolico (Edu Manzano) searches for a cave. He and his local bearers find it and he ends up fighting them all for what treasures may be in there. In fact, it is a place of the devil, which manifests as a green fireball and offers him youth, wealth and power (via a medallion) so that he can go out and bring darkness to the world.

angelic visitation

Cut to the Philippines in 1975 and Narda (played as an adult by Nanette Medved), as a young girl, is out with her brother Dong (played older by Tony Lambino) playing hide and seek. Narda hides in a cave and has a visitation from an angel who tells her that she is the chosen one who will fight as Darna. Dong finds her sleeping when a meteorite (or comet according to the subtitles I saw) crashes down. They find it and it reveals a glowing stone that flies into her mouth. She says that the angel called her Dana and we hear a noise indicating she transforms, though it is off screen.

having a swim

Cut to modern day and Narda is having a bit of a swim in a pool, below a waterfall, wearing a shift – as you do. She is being spied upon by four creepy guys (there are a lot of rapey blokes in the film). Dong meets up with her but the guys decide to get physical with her. Dong throws her the stone and she shouts Darna and then beats the guys up until they end up tied naked at the top of the waterfall begging forgiveness. We discover that Narda lives with Dong, their younger brother Ding (Atong Redillas) and their grandmother and has a crush on George (Tonton Gutierrez) – she and George are reporters and work with photographer Buster (Dennis Padilla), which of course gives this a gender-swapped Superman dynamic.

manananggal

The primary bad guy in this is Dominico who is described as a “world famous archaeologist, businessman, philanthropist, artist and playboy” who travels to the Philippines under the guise of doing good works but out to spread darkness and get the mystic stone (a thread that seems to vanish and becomes trying to force Darna over to the dark side). To do this he transforms model/fashionista Valentina (Pilar Pilapil) into a gorgon. He also takes Dong’s teacher Impakta (Bing Loyzaga), who crashes his celebrity party, and turns her into a manananggal. This is our vampire, of course, and she separates her upper half, has bat wings and fangs.

with victim

She is a particularly nasty vampire – luring a homeless child with a teddy bear and ripping her apart (partially off-screen). Whilst we see her leave her lower half behind, she can also appear human to lure a victim (Buster as it happens). We see a victim with a bloodied neck and blood at her mouth and her defeat involves a neon cross.

Nanette Medved as Darna

The film was fun enough with an air that Narda is a honest girl from a humble background and the enemies are of the celebrity class – or in Impakta’s case aspired to be part of that class. The forcing them into being monsters through satanic rite is also tried on Darna and it is through family (in the form of Ding and Dong) that she resists and there is, of course, the overarching Christian-centric viewpoint with this being a battle between good and evil and Darna created through a celestial intervention.

Valentina the gorgon

However, it does suffer as many superhero films did in the past. It is definitely camp and it is nowhere near high cinema and the talking sock puppet snake (ok, not really a sock puppet, but near enough) was the height of the campness on display. Cheeky kids (in the form of Ding), comedy characters (Buster) and Narda’s habit of dropping or putting the stone down rather than jealously guarding it as the precious item it is both adds peril and a sense of disbelief. I think for this outing for Darna that 4 out of 10 is more than fair but I will be on the look out for other incarnations of the superheroine.

The imdb page is here.