History Film / Amigo

The UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}, 1900. Joel Torre stars as Rafael Dacanay, the head (cabeza) 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?

* NerdGlasses: Signal Corpsman Zeke wears round, metal-rimmed glasses. He's slight in build, and (per his position) mans the garrison's communications. L

* NerdGlasses: Signal Corpsman Zeke wears round, metal-rimmed glasses. He's slight in build, and (per his position) mans the garrison's communications. L

* NerdGlasses: Signal Corpsman Zeke wears round, metal-rimmed glasses. He's slight in build, and (per his position) mans the garrison's communications. This also makes him sort of a Western ''[[{{Meganekko}} megane]]''.

* UsefulNotes/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.

* SinisterMinister: Padre Hidalgo, the local Spanish friar, who wields more ''de facto'' power than even Rafael Dacanay does as the ''cabeza del barrio'', 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.

* AuthorityInNameOnly: Rafael is largely reduced to this, a sort of native assistant colonial administrator, when the Americans set up a garrison in his village. They even kind of reserve even more authority for Padre Hidalgo despite the latter being part of the departed, vanquished, Spanish-colonial regime, because they set him free as an indispensable interpreter and moral and social authority in the community.

* GratuitousLatin: Catholic masses and rituals were conducted almost completely in Latin in this era, shown in Padre Hidalgo's pronunciations and the liturgical hymns (e.g., the one sang at a funeral).

Also compare ''Film/HeneralLuna'', a 2015 {{Biopic}} also set during this war, and whose protagonist, the eponymous General Antonio Luna, was the RealLife chief-of-staff of General/President Emilio Aguinaldo's [[LaResistance Revolutionary Army]].

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The U.S. troops throw racial slurs around with abandon, calling the Filipinos "goo-goos" (which later evolved into the term "gook", later used against their [[UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar Korean enemies]], and still later against the [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnamese]]). The term "goo-goo", in fact, was first recorded used during this war. Ironically "goo-goo" may have evolved from Filipino itself, from "gago" (stupid), which may have been borrowed from Spanish.

''Amigo'', released in 2010, is an indie, joint American/Filipino production, directed by notable small-time indie filmmaker Creator/JohnSayles, and starring the likes of Creator/ChrisCooper and Creator/DaneDeHaan 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.)

* 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 Creator/ChrisCooper and [[RetroactiveRecognition a pre-stardom]] Dane [=DeHaan=] on the American side, which is kind of amusing given their future relationship in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'', and also Creator/GarretDillahunt.

* SinisterMinister: Padre Hidalgo, the local Spanish friar, who wields more de facto power than even Rafael Dacanay does as the ''cabeza del barrio'', 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.

** Many of the same circle of actors recur frequently in various Filipino period movies; parish boy Nenong, Rafael's son, was played by John Arcilla, who would later famously headline ''Film/HeneralLuna''. Other such actors active in Filipino PeriodPiece circles include Ronnie Lazaro, who here plays Simón, Rafael's rebel brother. Joel Torre himself first got prominent billing in the 1982 ''Oro, Plata, Mata'', although that was set just prior to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

* TheGhost: Aguinaldo himself never shows up in this movie; indeed, no onscreen character here is a RealLife personality or a HistoricalDomainCharacter, in contrast to many Filipino PeriodPiece productions, which are more often explicitly {{Biopic}}s or BasedOnATrueStory.

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

* WarIsHell: This proto-Vietnam riceland/jungle setting proves intensely discomforting to the Americans, what with mud, mosquitoes, alternating humid sun and torrential rainfall, and the quick spread of tropical diseases. It's also hell for the Filipinos, who aren't entirely immune from the diseases themselves (many insurgents actually died of things like cholera), and could expect brutal treatment if captured by the Americans, including torture methods like the infamous "water cure"—essentially the precursor to the waterboarding employed against the Middle East in TheWarOnTerror, a century hence.

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 Philippine-American War period, and even then it deals with the Moro (Muslim) Rebellion in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.[[note]]Most of Mindanao had never been conquered by the Spanish, so when the Americans came, the locals' resistance was basically independent from the originally anti-Spanish revolution in the northern and central Philippine regions.[[/note]] Contrast an even more obscure play by George Ade, ''Theatre/TheSultanOfSulu'', which deals with the U.S. invasion of Sulu, off the coast of Mindanao, and also a precursor to 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]]

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 Philippine-American War period, and even then it deals with the Moro (Muslim) Rebellion in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.[[note]]Most of Mindanao had never been conquered by the Spanish, so when the Americans came, the locals' resistance was basically independent from the originally anti-Spanish revolution in the northern and central Philippine regions.[[/note]] Contrast an even more obscure play by George Ade, ''Theatre/TheSultanOfSulu'', which deals with the U.S. invasion of Sulu, off the coast 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]]

* GorgeousPeriodDress: Especially evident among Filipino natives when they put on their gauziest finery, especially for Sunday masses and town fiestas, one of which plays out under direct American occupation. There are ''baro't sayas'' (embroidered women's shawled dresses), ''barong Tagalogs'' (embroidered men's shirts), and opaque suits like Rafael's close-collared white one. The military uniforms depicted are relatively simple but not too shabby, like the Americans' dark blue-and-khaki outfits or the Revolutionaries' light-blue ''rayadillo'' ensembles.

''Amigo'', released in 2010, is an indie, joint American/Filipino production, directed by notable small-time indie filmmaker Creator/JohnSayles, 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.)

* 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 Creator/ChrisCooper and [[RetroactiveRecognition a pre-stardom]] Dane [=DeHaan=] on the American side, which is kind of amusing given their future relationship in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2''.