The best JM de Guzman’s drama movies

Imbisibol essays the lives of four Filipino migrants in Japan – Linda, Benjie, Manuel and Rodel – who are toiling in a foreign land to give their families in the Philippines a better quality of life. The story revolves around the joys and struggles of Linda, a Filipina married to a Japanese salaryman who is torn between helping undocumented Filipinos stay in Japan by renting out rooms to them and succumbing to the demands of her husband to evict the Filipinos and save their marriage; Benjie, an undocumented worker who has been jumping from one odd job to another in the last 17 years and desires to go home already and be with his children; Manuel, an aging male entertainer who is struggling with his insecurities and his addiction to gambling; and Rodel, an idealistic newcomer who encounters a rising tension and rivalry with another Filipino at work.

In the traffic-laden streets of Metro Manila, two brothers use the chaos of the city roads as a smokescreen for their shady occupation tandem robbers on motorbike. But when a robbery goes sour, the brothers are forced to graduate from low level thieves to high profile hit men in an act that tests both their resolve and their relationship.

A young man suffering from face blindness and a young woman with a troubled past fall in love.

About a young painter who arrives at an island made of garbage. He uses the island and its denizens as his canvas and fights to protect the island from forces that threaten it.

What is the measure of true friendship? Jamir, a devout Muslim, and Lando, a Christian, are among an elite group of young recruits formed by military officers for a classified operation. These impressionable young men would undergo intense and grueling training that put their will and strength of character to the test. Amidst all the hardships, these men set aside their differences and became brothers. But what happens when the institution they have sworn to protect becomes the wedge that will tear their brotherhood apart?

A macho dad learns to accept the real identity of his gay son before it gets too late.

Intoy has had the hots for Doray since they were kids in Kalye Marino, Cavite City, formerly the American Naval Base in Sangley Point. Both marginalized as the long-lasting effect of American abandonment of the said base, Intoy has become Kalye Marino’s best “tahong” caretaker-with-no-angst-about-poverty, while Doray a cheap prostitute-with-no-guilt, tending to her siblings’ needs. Intoy strives to have his own cages of “tahong” so he can have Doray, not for just a night of quickie sex, but forever. But what will he do to when she offers to drop by his hovel-on-stilts to quench his passion, but before it happens Nature has chosen to play a joke on his tahong cage? Will it be goodbye to his tahong business or to his damsel-in-distress and ultimately to Kalye Marino? From Eros S. Atalia’s 2001 Palanca Grand Prize-winning Short Story, Intoy Syokoy ng Kalye Marino is a love tale minus the obligatory romantic sentiments.