For the past five years, Erik Matti’s creations have revolved around the intensely realistic, the strong, the sudden: Honor Thy Father, Seklusyon, Buy Bust, to name a few. All have made us feel like we’ve caught a splinter. This year, the filmmaker is set to take the big screen again with a seemingly more colorful and adventurous story.
On Feb. 23, Reality Entertainment released the first trailer of hyperreal fantasy Yo!, the latest from Erik Matti. The almost three-minute visual tease shows a poster badass girl Tala Aragon (portrayed by taekwondo star Pauline Lopez) narrating pieces of her past in relation to Filipino culture, “sabi ng lolo ko, ‘pag binato ka ng bato, tinapay ang ibalik mo.” This coincides with the childhood Filipino toy yoyo she twists and turns throughout the trailer, as she says, “ang sabi ko, ‘pag binato ka ng bato, batuhin mo ng yoyo.” There are also notable references like things being made in China and how fake news is present today.
According to Reality Entertainment on Youtube, their first attempt in doing a green screen film was in 2012 for Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles. Yo! will be the second. “Please note that they will not be in cyberspace but they will be in their own animated graphic world when they focus on their best friend the yoyo,” they explain.