History Film / Amigo

*** TheQuisling: As the point person who will have to deal with the American forces, Rafael is in danger of being seen as this by the Revolutionary leadership (including his own brother!) when he attempts to accommodate the Americans in his village.

* ActorAllusion: Probably unintentional. The American colonel remarks that Aguinaldo could be hiding in the very village the movie is set and they'd be none the wiser. Joel Torre played Aguinaldo himself in ''Tirad Pass: The Last Stand of Gen. Gregorio del Pilar'' in 1997.

The UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}, 1900. Joel Torre stars as Rafael Dacanay, the chief of the tiny Filipino barrio of San Isidro, which is just beginning to enjoy its newfound independence from Spain (as evidenced by chained soldiers and the locked-up friar, Padre Hidalgo), when out of nowhere the Americans burst in, bringing the Philippine-American War into this small corner of Luzon. This puts him between a rock and a hard place, as the Americans obviously expect him to cooperate, but his own brother is in the Revolutionary Army under General Emilio Aguinaldo, now forced to fight off a wholly new coloniser in this new, brutal and largely forgotten chapter in the history of American imperial power. The rest of his family is similarly divided by their loyalties. Both sides are armed, dangerous, and will not hesitate to shoot anyone presumed to be working for the enemy. Whose side is he to choose?

* LesCollaborateurs: How the Revolutionary Army views anyone suspected of collaborating with the U.S., which it naturally deems treason, and punishable by death.
** TheQuisling: As the point person who will have to deal with the American forces, Rafael is in danger of being seen as this by the Revolutionary leadership (including his own brother!) when he attempts to accommodate the Americans in his village.

* FreezeFrameEnding

* SinisterMinister: Padre Hidalgo, the local Spanish friar, who wields more de facto power than even Rafael Dacanay does as village chief, even when the Spanish government ''per se'' has already surrendered to the Filipinos. As a polyglot who knows both Tagalog and English in addition to his native Spanish—and likely not to mention Latin, as expected in his line of work—Padre Hidalgo is thus indispensable to the American occupying force as an interpreter, and is thus kept free to maintain the Americans' control over the town. The enormous latitude of such indirect friar power over the natives is TruthInTelevision.

* LatinLand: The Revolutionaries just finished defeating Spanish-colonial forces, tying up their officers and even locking up a Spanish friar, both integral elements of a colonial regime that controlled much of the Philippine islands for over 300+ years prior. By this point, it's pretty much Latin Land in Asia, what with almost everyone being at least nominally Catholic (and holding Catholic fiestas, masses, funerals, etc.), and having mostly Spanish given and/or family names.[[note]]There are exceptions, of course: "Dacanay" itself, the titular Amigo's surname (and his family's, duh), is of native origin, Tagalog or otherwise; and those with some Chinese blood also have Hispanicised but originally Chinese-derived surnames (e.g., Locsin).[[/note]]

* LatinLand

* TitleDrop: When Rafael tells the Americans "I am a good friend" in Spanish: "Soy muy amigo".

* TitleDrop: When Rafael tells the Americans "I am your friend" in Spanish: "Yo soy tu amigo".

Notable for being one of the very few fictional works made by Americans about their colonial empire, in stark contrast to the abundance of British colonial fiction and literature about UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, producing such luminaries as Creator/RudyardKipling, Creator/GeorgeOrwell, Creator/EMForster, and so on. ''The Real Glory'', made back in 1939—before UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, while the Philippines was technically still a U.S. colony, though upgraded to Commonwealth status—is one of the few other known American films about the war. Contrast an even more obscure play by George Ade, ''Theatre/TheSultanOfSulu'', which deals with a related conflict—the U.S. invasion of Sulu, off the coast of the Southern Philippine island of Mindanao, and a precursor to what is called the Moro Rebellion—but which, as a [[TheMusical musical]], is treated more comically. [[note]]Partly this may be because the play was finished in 1902—the worst atrocities of the war, either in the Catholic Philippine regions or in Muslim-majority Mindanao, had yet to happen, let alone reach the attention of would-be ardent anti-imperialists, like Creator/MarkTwain, who later did write scathing indictments of American atrocities in Mindanao, most notably the Battles of Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak (a.k.a. the Moro Crater Massacre) of 1906.[[/note]]

** In the rear-view mirror, Spain too, which is why the Filipinos fought to break free from them int he first place. It's largely lost and conceded defeat by the movie's setting (in 1900), but its remnants continue to hold power in local communities like San Isidro, particularly in the form of Catholic friars like Padre Hidalgo.

** In the rear-view mirror, Spain too. It's largely lost and conceded defeat by this point, but its remnants continue to hold power in local communities like San Isidro, particularly in the form of Catholic friars like Padre Hidalgo.

''Amigo'', released in 2010, is an indie, joint American/Filipino production, directed by notable small-time indie filmmaker John Sayles, and starring the likes of Creator/ChrisCooper and Dane [=DeHaan=] on the American side, as well as a rather star-studded cast on the Filipino side, including such luminaries as Joel Torre, Rio Locsin, Ronnie Lazaro & Pen Medina, amongst others. (The Spanish side meanwhile is represented by a friar played—rather ironically, possibly deliberately so—by Cuban-American Yul Vazquez.)

** TheQuisling: As the point person who will have to deal with the American forces, Rafael is in danger of being seen as this by the Revolutionary leadership (including his own brother!) when he * DeathOfAChild: Sadly, a little girl in the town is felled by a bullet. A poignant funeral scene with all its Hispanic Catholic pomposity follows, with children chanting Latin orations and older folk in lacy finery.

attempts to accommodate the Americans in his village.

* DeathOfAChild: Sadly, a little girl in the town is felled by a bullet. A poignant funeral scene with all its Hispanic Catholic pomposity follows, with children chanting Latin orations and older folk in lacy finery.

* TheQuisling: How the Revolutionary Army views anyone suspected of collaborating with the U.S., which it naturally deems treason, and punishable by death. Rafael is in danger of being seen as this when he attempts to accommodate the American forces.

''Amigo'', released in 2010, is an indie, joint American/Filipino production, directed by notable small-time indie filmmaker John Sayles, and starring the likes of Creator/ChrisCooper and Dane [=DeHaan=] on the American side, as well as a rather star-studded cast on the Filipino side, including such luminaries as Joel Torre, Rio Locsin, Ronnie Lazaro & Pen Medina, amongst others. (The Spanish side meanwhile is represented by a friar played—rather ironically—by Cuban-American Yul Vazquez.)

* EagleLand: Largely Type 2, of course, considering the Americans are the new colonial occupying forces, but ''individual'' troops are at least sometimes portrayed as capable of their own sympathy and positive curiosity towards Filipinos and their culture, lending the film at least a modicum of Type 1 credentials.

* [[spoiler:TheHeroDies: Rafael Dacanay is hanged by the Americans.]]

* InfantImmortality: Sadly averted when a little girl in the town is felled by a bullet. A poignant funeral scene with all its Hispanic Catholic pomposity follows, with children chanting Latin orations and older folk in lacy finery.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam?]] [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Afghanistan? Iraq?]] Take your pick.

* BananaRepublic: It's a background detail, but broadly speaking, the First Philippine Republic (for which Rafael's brother's fighting), falls under this—it's very much Hispanicised or Latinised in character (having just broken free from Spain), has a government monopolised by oligarchic elites and a military leader (General Emilio Aguinaldo, who in RealLife called himself the "Dictator of the Philippines" at one point), and is about to begin a long, tangled relationship with the imperialist United States, just like many of the more stereotypical banana republics across Latin America.

* KnifeNut: Besides rifles, the insurrectos carry long bolo knives, similar to machetes. One of them, Locsin, develops a fearsome reputation for cutting wide swathes of carnage ''and'' seizing enemy firearms with just a bolo.

* FilipinosWithFirearms: It's the Philippine-American War, so of course. But they're hardly limited to guns—other weapons such as [[KnifeNut bolo knives]] get some use too.

* EnsembleCast: Particularly on the Filipino side. Joel Torre, Ronnie Lazaro, Rio Locsin, Pen Medina, Bembol Roco … they and others are well-known veterans in Philippine entertainment. Meanwhile, there's ChrisCooper and [[RetroactiveRecognition a pre-stardom]] Dane [=DeHaan=] on the American side, which is kind of amusing given their future relationship in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2''.

->"At the turn of the last century, the United States declared war on Spain. They pledged to free the island of {{Cuba}}, ninety miles to the south, from colonial rule. It was thus that American troops came to [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} yet another Spanish colony]]—half a world away. They decided to stay."

The {{Philippines}}, 1900. Joel Torre stars as Rafael Dacanay, the chief of the tiny Filipino barrio of San Isidro, which is just beginning to enjoy its newfound independence from Spain (as evidenced by chained soldiers and the locked-up friar, Padre Hidalgo), when out of nowhere the Americans burst in, bringing the Philippine-American War into this small corner of Luzon. This puts him between a rock and a hard place, as the Americans obviously expect him to cooperate, but his own brother is in the Revolutionary Army under General Emilio Aguinaldo, now forced to fight off a wholly new coloniser in this new, brutal and largely forgotten chapter in the history of American imperial power. The rest of his family is similarly divided by their loyalties. Both sides are armed, dangerous, and will not hesitate to shoot anyone presumed to be working for the enemy. Whose side is he to choose?

Notable for being one of the very few fictional works made by Americans about their colonial empire, in stark contrast to the abundance of British colonial fiction and literature about UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, producing such luminaries as Creator/RudyardKipling, Creator/GeorgeOrwell, Creator/EMForster, and so on. ''The Real Glory'', made back in 1939—before WorldWarII, while the Philippines was technically still a U.S. colony, though upgraded to Commonwealth status—is one of the few other known American films about the war. Contrast an even more obscure play by George Ade, ''Theatre/TheSultanOfSulu'', which deals with a related conflict—the U.S. invasion of Sulu, off the coast of the Southern Philippine island of Mindanao, and a precursor to what is called the Moro Rebellion—but which, as a [[TheMusical musical]], is treated more comically. [[note]]Partly this may be because the play was finished in 1902—the worst atrocities of the war, either in the Catholic Philippine regions or in Muslim-majority Mindanao, had yet to happen, let alone reach the attention of would-be ardent anti-imperialists, like Creator/MarkTwain, who later did write scathing indictments of American atrocities in Mindanao, most notably the Battles of Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak (a.k.a. the Moro Crater Massacre) of 1906.[[/note]]