KAKABAKABA KA BA? (Will Your Heart Beat Faster?)

KAKABAKABA KA BA? (Will Your Heart Beat Faster?)
by Mike de Leon

104 minutes | Satirical Commentary/Absurdist Musical Comedy | PG | 1980

CAST
Christopher de Leon, Charo Santos, Jay Ilagan, Sandy Andolong, Boboy Garovillo, Danny Javier, and Jim Paredes, Johnny Delgado, Armida Siguion-Reyna, Leo Martinez, Nanette Inventor

PRODUCTION
DIRECTOR – Mike De Leon; WRITERS – Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr., Raquel Villavicencio, Mike De Leon
PRODUCERS – LVN Pictures, Encarnacion De Leon, Narcisa De Leon, Manuel De Leon
DISTRIBUTOR – D’Wonder Films; COMPOSER – Lorrie Ilustre; EDITOR – Ike Jarlego Jr.
PRODUCTION DESIGNER – Raquel Villavicencio
ART DIRECTOR – Noli Gamboa
SECOND UNIT/ASSISTANT DIRECTOR – Ike Jarlego Jr.
ART DEPARTMENT – Trina N. Dayrit, Berting De Guzman, Jesus Enriquez
SOUND DEPARTMENT – Danny Gonzales, Oscar Magnaye, Luis S. Reyes, Ramon Reyes, Rudy Teope

LOGLINE
The film revolves around two couples who find themselves in conflict with the foreign commercial giants that control the Philippine economy – the Japanese and the Chinese.

SYNOPSIS
Onota (Boboy Garovillo), a Japanese Yakuza member, repeatedly fails in his attempts to smuggle contraband into the Philippines. After several failures, his master (George Javier) gives him another chance to fly to Manila with a cassette tape containing contraband. Onota slips the cassette tape in an unassuming Filipino passenger bound for the Philippines – Johnny (Christopher de Leon).

Apart from Onota, other villainous groups interested in getting the cassette tape harass Johnny and his girlfriend Melanie (Charo Santos) and their friends Nonong (Jay Ilagan) and Nancy (Sandy Andolong). These groups include Madame Lily (Armida Siguion-Reyna) and Fr. Blanco (Leo Martinez).

The four friends travel to Baguio disguised as priests and nuns, and they discover a plot by the Japanese syndicate for a large-scale distribution of opium through communion wafers to control the Filipinos.

FILMMAKER’S PROFILE

MIGUEL PAMINTUAN DE LEON or MIKE DE LEON was a film director, cinematographer, scriptwriter, and film producer. Born during the post-war period on May 24, 1947 to Manuel de Leon and Imelda Pamintuan. His grandmother was Doña Sisang who founded LVN Pictures in 1938. Growing up in the LVN studio lot, he was exposed to movie productions of popular local films as well as Hollywood and European cinema. In the early 1970s, de Leon completed his Master of Arts (MA) in Art History from the Heidelberg University in Germany.

His films critique the Philippines’ corruption and impunity and other societal ills.

De Leon’s Kisapmata (1981); Batch ’81 (1982); Sister Stella L. (1984) are considered cinematic masterpieces and have won major awards in the Philippines. The Directors’ Fortnight at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival featured Kisapmata and Batch ‘81 while Sister Stella L. was the country’s entry in the 1985 Venice Film Festival.

de Leon’s films had a retrospective screening at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2022. The screening included Itim (The Rites of May, 1976), which was newly restored during that time, and premiered at the Cannes Classics in the same year; Kisapmata; Batch ’81; Sister Stella L.; Signos (1983); and Citizen Jake (2018). Behind-the-scene footage from his films Maynila, sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag

(Manila in the Claws of Light, 1975) where he was the film’s cinematographer, Itim, and Moments in a Stolen Dream (1977) were likewise shown.

The film Kakabakaba Ka ba? won five Gawad Urian Awards, namely, Best Direction for Mike de Leon, Best Supporting Actor for Johnny Delgado, Best Editing for Ike Jarlego, Jr., Best Music for Lorrie Ilustre, Best Sound for Ramon Reyes. The satire also garnered two FAMAS Awards for Best Editing and Best Sound for Ramon Reyes.

Prior to his death on August 28, 2025, he declined to accept the Gawad Urian Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, and the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining in 2024. Urian and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) still honored him with their respective awards.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“I was very serious about learning about film processing when I worked in the LVN lab. I had a darkroom where I did a lot of experimenting. The logic and technical ingenuity fascinated me. Negative, positive, negative – like life itself.

I’ve always liked historical montages. It’s something I picked up from the Warner Bros. gangster movies of the 1940s, and the films of one of my favorite actors, James Cagney. I don’t like graphics or text explaining the past before a film begins. And I’ve always liked compilation films and the art of juxtaposing disparate images to express or reveal a new meaning.

(In response to the question: You’ve been in this situation before, wanting to make apolitical films but feeling the need to speak up against the country’s corrupt leaders. Does this time feel different?) Age seems to be a big part of it. When one knows that his years or days are numbered, one begins to think of life like a story in a movie. You know, you expect to have some sort of happy or pleasant ending. The situation today is hardly pleasant.”

– Excerpted from the filmmaker’s interview at filmcomment.com in 2022.

Sources: IMDB, wikipedia, moma.org, quinzaine-cineastes.fr, old pinoy movies dyaw Facebook Page, tv.apple.com/ph/movie, filmcomment.com