懶得寫影評(píng)，就簡述一下故事。

男主是鄉(xiāng)下到馬尼拉的年輕小伙子，去工地應(yīng)征，日薪兩塊五。

工頭是典型壞人，扣克薪資（俚語稱“臺(tái)灣”，不知為何），做假帳（男主賬面上日薪四塊，多的被污掉）。

工地安全措施低劣，一名想當(dāng)歌手的工人很容易就摔死了，留下被翻爛的歌本。

工人大多未受教育，男主只有小學(xué)畢業(yè)，是為了尋找被騙來馬尼拉的女主而來，錢財(cái)被劫，才來做工。工人中禿頭M上補(bǔ)校畢業(yè)，后成為白領(lǐng)。

大廈近完工時(shí)男主被裁，到工地認(rèn)識(shí)的友人A處暫住。A住在貧民窟，家有癱瘓老父和妹妹，全家原是自耕農(nóng)，后土地被土豪強(qiáng)占，土豪雇黑道槍擊老父致殘。

男主在市中心流浪，夜宿公園，被一基佬撿回家?？吹竭@本以為男主會(huì)被奸，但基佬很有禮貌，只是煽動(dòng)男主一同下海賣屁股。

男主賣了一回屁股后感到不堪，投奔友人B。兩人同去工地找A，得知A因與工頭沖突入獄，在獄中被打死。兩人同去探望A之妹，后決定湊錢幫助她，不料貧民窟被火燒成平地，人不知去向。

男主在街頭遇見拐賣女主的女人口販子，和警察起沖突，原要給A妹的錢被警察搶去。后巧遇當(dāng)上白領(lǐng)的M，得知A父被燒死，A妹淪入風(fēng)塵。

男主在教堂遇見女主，原來她被賣給華人富翁作小妾，已生下一女嬰。男主要求她帶孩子一起遠(yuǎn)走高飛，女主害怕華人淫威。

男主在約定的時(shí)間地點(diǎn)沒等到女主，在報(bào)紙社會(huì)版上看到她已死，疑為謀殺。

男主旁觀葬禮后去找華人富翁，舉刀刺殺之，被追捕，逃入死巷，慘叫一聲，全片告終。

English Title: Manila in the Claws of Light
Original Title: Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag
Year: 1975
Country: Philippines
Language: Filipino, Tagalog, English
Genre: Drama
Director: Lino Brocka
Writer: Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr.
based on the novel by Edgardo Reyes
Music: Max Jocson
Cinematography:
Mike De Leon
Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr.
Cast:
Bembol Roco
Hilda Koronel
Tommy Abuel
Lou Salvador Jr.
Jojo Abella
Pio De Castro III
Lily Gamboa Mendoza
Joonee Gamboa
Joe Gruta
Juling Bagabaldo
Tommy Yap
Rating: 7.8/10



The linchpin of Filipino cinema, Lino Brocka’s pièce de résistance has been received a well-deserved BluRay treatment, MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT is a searing social critique told through the jeremiad of a young fishmonger from a provincial island, Julio Madiaga (the newcomer Roco purveys a deeply affecting performance as a new-in-town tenderfoot) arrives in the big city to search for his childhood sweetheart Ligaya (Koronel), who has been roped into shady prostitute ring from their hometown, only to be overcome by a society infested with moral turpitude and unspeakable vice, belonging to the lowest of the social rung, Julio is inexorably driven to a breaking point when he can only resort to the most radical method to express his fury and desperation, and his ultimate denouement is ominously preordained through the accretion of his violent impulse.

Brocka hones a critical eye in presenting the film’s urban jungle milieu, shot in actual loci: the harsh conditions of those construction workers, one of them, Atong (Salvador, Jr.) with whom Julio befriends, lives in the squalid shanty with his younger sister (Mendoza) and their bed-ridden father (a landowner expelled out of his own property by wealthy foreigners), adjacent to polluted water, believe it or not, he is in a well-off situation (before the sorry fate catches on with his family); a chock-a-block local market where bargains for goods soon sour into personal attacks and that particular building where Julio suspects Ligaya is interned by a Chinese-Filipino Ah-Tek (Yap), the rarely seen ringleader, and its neon-lit signboard.

His pittance is shortchanged by the sleazy honcho and dangled by the intrusive oldest profession, sacked mercilessly when he is no longer needed, Julio witnesses accidental death befalls on the construction site, the indignant fate befalls on Atong and his family, still, he is too wet behind the ears, succumbs to the skulduggery of a policeman imposter on the street. The crescendo of injustice is which lends this film its cachet and its undimmed relevance, the whole drama probes an unyielding peer into the miasma of unrelieved depravity (just to plumb how pandemic this kind of pathology can reach with a deplorable cri-de-coeur), mirrored through Julio’s nostalgic erstwhile memories (ultra-snappy edited), which we all but realize there is no way back.

An unexpected sortie in the rough trade virtually becomes the most benevolent segment among a concatenation of threnodies, where Julio reluctantly dips his toes with an epicene punter, which imbues a purely libidinous concern without any creeping malevolence, that is prevalent elsewhere. But, not everyone can find his feet in that line of business, the bar is quite high, actually. A non-judgmental take on the often pejoratively depicted subculture does flag up Brocka’s unflinching resolution to spark more social commentary than he would be allowed.

Eventually, a chance meeting (a rather oddly conceived occasion wanting more context) reunites the star-crossed lovers, and Hilda Koronel recounts Ligaya’s ordeal with palpable poignancy in the lengthy close-ups, only to be tritely weighed down by her inextricable maternal attachment, and spoils their final chance of a happier finale.

Upholstered with a perturbing score from Jocson, MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT is as harrowing a story as one could envision, but under Brocka’s stylish execution, it brims with an urgency to provoke, to shock, to jolt viewers into condemnation, only if he could have curtailed his exasperating anti-China slant, viewed 40-odd years later.