Words by Meldrick Tin
Bell Films, a film outlet making a comeback after over 23 years, has released a new film. KontrAdiksyon, starring Jake Cuenca, Kris Bernal, and Katrina Halili, is an action-packed movie tackling the issue on the war on drugs.
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Jake Cuenca as Alexis Borlaza
The premise of the political action-drama movie revolves around Alexis Borlaza (played by Jake Cuenca) who is a human rights activist. He ends up becoming an undercover drug enforcement agent for the PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) after his family is murdered by drug addicts. Because of this, he decides to become a vigilante killer by night as well as he tries to track down the criminal mastermind behind the death of his wife and children. Eventually, he joins forces with Jessica Puyat (played by Kris Bernal), a single-mom and drug pusher struggling to provide for her family.
Despite the rather complex plot this movie has to offer, the Palanca Award-winning director behind the movie, Njel De Mesa, aims to show the “adverse effects of illegal drugs to the over-all health of a person which tragically leads to a life of crime.”
Kris Bernal and Jake Cuence star together in KontrAdiksyon
At the movie’s press conference held last June 14, 2019, Njel de Mesa said the title is a play on the words Kontra and Adiksyon. In the official movie poster, the director explains, shabu powder and blood stains were illustrated to emphasize that if you get into this kind of addiction, you also dabble with illegal drugs, blood, and violence. Njel de Mesa shares that the movie aims to mirror real life situations Filipinos experience in the country. What is also unique about the film is that there is no clear-cut protagonist or antagonist, and that every character has a good and bad side, which gives way to further analysis from the viewers of the movie.
The director and the cast of KontrAdiksyon at the press launch
The directors and the cast of KontrAdiksyon hope that we, Filipinos, can patronize this socially-relevant movie as it gives us a background on how society is negatively affected by drug addiction. They promise that movie-goers will be entertained from both the action and the drama of the film.
Watch the trailer here:
Catch KontrAdiksyon this June 26, 2019 showing in cinemas nationwide.
