The Search for Weng Weng (2007)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2007
	Director: Andrew Leavold
	Actors: Tikoy Aguiluz, Roy Arabejo, Tilman Baumgaertel
	Country: AUS, RP
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 01.05.2014, Teatro Nuovo, FEFF2014
Synopsis: Who is Weng Weng? Small person, lead actor in several Philipino spy movies in the 70's...
Review: I know a bit about the exploitation movies of the 70's-80's, but I had never heard about this Philipino 3-feet tall counterpart to James Bond. The director of the documentary is the owner of the largest alternative movies video store in Australia. We follow his quest to find who really is Weng Weng, the actor in a movie that the director became obsessed with: "For Y'ur Height Only". After watching a few extracts of this movie I already wanted to see it, and I have now ordered it on Amazon. You can get a good idea of it by watching this Hip-Hop video clip by The Chuds. The documentary is quite well edited, in the sense that we progressively discover hints about Weng weng and the Philipino cinema History, as the director did in the course of his 7-years quest. Not really a spoiler: we finally learn the sad details of the life of the actor playing Weng Weng. More surprisingly, we learn that he was a true star, meeting with important people and the president of the country, but at the same time he was absolutely exploited and never got any money. Some moments of the documentary are quite extraordinary, like when the crew meets the wife of the ex-president/dictator, still living in an artificial world of hers. At that point I found it very interesting that the documentary breaks away from the search for Weng weng to teach us about the political History of the Philippines, and its cinema History as well. Know that at that period it was the second largest production in the World, with more than 300 movies a year!
Rating: 7 /10