Rey Valera shines

Summer Metro Manila Film Festival 2023

By Brontë H. Lacsamana, Reporter

Movie Review
Kahit Maputi Na Ang Buhok Ko
Directed by Joven Tan
MTRCB Rating: PG

IF you’re looking to watch a collection of real-life reenactments/music videos that will induce a mix of tears and sing-along karaoke and spark nostalgia among baby boomers, this is the film for you (if it can even be considered a film in the first place).

But not to discredit Rey Valera’s life and contributions — his story is engaging and moving and his work is a remarkable cornerstone of Filipino music. Hearing his songs and getting insight into them through his talking-head interviews where he earnestly speaks about his experiences are the best parts of this film.

However, all value is lost amid a thick haze of TV-style melodrama that’s drilled into our heads over and over. The episodic reenactments of Mr. Valera’s life descend again and again into glorified tearjerker music videos.

The film starts like a standard biographical film, with Mr. Valera’s unstable upbringing where he and his younger brother struggle in a broken family. Born Reynaldo Guardiano, Rey Valera grew up in poverty and hardship, then was rewarded by fate in a rags-to-riches journey. All standard stuff.

Next part is his successful songwriting process, which involves observing people around him and writing lyrics based on them. Sadly, this gets monotonous. The grating, seemingly never-ending structure: a Valera interview, a reenactment of his life, then a long, emotional music video inspired by a stranger he encounters. Rinse and repeat.

Perhaps if the film was a full-on documentary with just a few quality reenactments and music excerpts rather than a slog of everything mashed together, we could have ended up with something cohesive.

With that said, the talented RK Bagatsing who plays Mr. Valera and the beautiful Meg Imperial who plays his love interest do their part. They believably go through the hard times and situations that the singer-songwriter himself faced. Mr. Bagatsing’s awkward wig and fake mole distracted quite a bit, though.

Faring worse, unfortunately, are the child actors that played the young Mr. Valera and his brother, who trudge through hardships well enough in slow-mo action shots, but struggle when delivering lines and emoting.
For the music video parts, a star-studded cast lend their talents in cheesy bit roles — Lotlot De Leon as a Rey Valera fan, Dennis Padilla as an unrequited lover, Rosanna Roces as a misunderstood prostitute, Epy Quizon as a heartbroken drunkard, and so on and so forth.

Though they act their hearts out with iconic Rey Valera hits playing in the background, it feels made for TV in that it doesn’t require the viewers’ full focus as a film made to play in a cinema. The scriptwriting, cinematography, and production design are so standard you begin to question if you’re at home watching a channel your mother put on while dinner is being cooked.

“Pangako,” “Maging Sino Ka Man,” “Kung Tayo’y Magkakalayo,” “Malayo Pa Ang Umaga,” the titular “Kahit Maputi Na Ang Buhok Ko”… All these songs (and more!) are excellent, and you, your older family member/s, and the cinema security guard may find yourselves leaving the movie house singing these tunes — but all credit goes to the singer-songwriter himself, and not really because the film is any good.