Lumpia Goes to the Movie Screen
/
“Lumpia with a Vengeance” (Photo courtesy of Kid Heroes Productions)
Ginelsa, age 47, was born in San Francisco and grew up in Daly City. His mother, Mercedes Ginelsa, immigrated from Cebu. His late father, Patricio Sr., was born in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, but went to high school in Cebu. Ginelsa lives with his wife and son, 7, in the Los Angeles suburb of Montebello. While an undergraduate in the USC School of Cinematic Arts, he held a work study job in the USC Marshall School of Business, and 20 years later, runs the school’s Capture Studio.
Patricio Ginelsa with wife Melanie and son Logan (Photo by Edward Sebastian Jr.)
Lumpia with a Vengeance is the sequel to Lumpia, which Ginelsa and neighborhood friends completed in 2003 on a shoestring budget before they separated for college. The second installment (heretofore, Lumpia 2) reunites Ginelsa with the first movie’s castmates from Daly City High, where some scenes were filmed.
Production had stalled until the gruff Latino actor Danny Trejo came on board in the role of Reyes, the arch enemy and purveyor of weaponized taquitos (little tacos). Once again, Trejo proves that an actor can be ubiquitous and not invasive. Former UFC fighter Mark Muñoz plays the Silent Avenger. He has the serious air that augments the game with the high stakes he encountered in the ring. April Absynth (Blindspotting on Starz) is a revelation as Rachel, the spitfire of a daughter of Mon Mon (original Lumpia cast member Francis Custodio). If skill requires experience, this new face demonstrates the preeminence of talent on the big screen.
Mark Muñoz (Photo courtesy of Kid Heroes Productions)
Danny Trejo (Photo courtesy of Kid Heroes Productions)
Movie Preceded the Comic Books
It was inevitable that the movie would spawn a comic book. Characters are introduced through intercuts reminiscent of comic book art. The Lumpia comic book is published by Ginelsa’s company KidHeroes.
“The comic book and Lumpia 2 were done with a comic book aesthetic,” observes Ginelsa. “The story starts with the opening of a comic book. You are about to enter what fans have coined the Deep-Fried Universe.”
While the movie impressed judges at film festivals and won an Audience Award for Best Narrative at the 40th Hawai’i International Film Festival, it found its niche at comic book festivals.
“At San Diego Comic-Con in 2021, we had to turn away five hundred fans from the sold-out screening. The success made me realize there’s a real audience for it.” And who was this real audience? Ginelsa answers, “Nerds. They’re open-minded and they appreciate pop culture.” If Filipino culture is pop culture, he meant the term as a compliment.
Going Native
Fans are treated to a story that’s unapologetically Filipino with insider references, unburdened by an obligation to let outsiders in on family secrets. For instance, Rachel is short for Rosschalyn, a mashup of the names Ross and Rachel from her parents’ favorite show. Filipinos take pride in combo names, and they adore Santo Niño, the princely dolls of Jesus depicted as a toddler encased in glass.
Francis Custodio (left, Mon-Mon) and April Absynth (Rachel) confront the villain Jemini (Photo courtesy of Kid Heroes Productions)
“We had a sense that many audience members would be Filipino and that anyone else will have to bring themselves up to speed,” says Ginelsa.
Ginelsa recalls an incident when a white male at a screening burst out laughing as a Filipino character faces the familiar choice of Asian or Pacific Islander when filling out a form. He checks Caucasian because of the “asian” in Caucasian. “The guy was embarrassed for laughing. He worried that he had done something improper, so he asked me if it was OK to laugh at the joke.”
The right to make the movie his way was earned by Ginelsa, whose reputation as a director before shooting began in 2017 came from music videos for the Black Eyed Peas and various Filipino artists along with production jobs at Sony and Paramount Studios.
In 2013, the financial potential of a Fil-Am movie was dubious because ten years had passed since the last significant Fil-Am movie, The Debut, which Ginelsa had worked on. Lumpia 2 took ten years to make at $250,000. At one point, Ginelsa crowdfunded with Kickstarter where it drifted to $18,000 short of its $50,000 goal until fortune intervened. “I knew the first Lumpia movie had had a small cult following, but I didn’t expect the second movie to go viral. We raised the full amount through 712 backers.”
“Filmmaker Patricio Ginelsa, 47, is using truth and comedy to redefine the Filipino identity in his superhero movie, Lumpia with a Vengeance.”
The movie has been playing the film circuit for two years. It reached theatres in Fall 2022 when the Regal Theatres chain had seats to fill during the pandemic standstill. Lumpia 2 is now available to rent or own on Apple, Amazon Prime, and other providers of streaming on demand. Bookend it between Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon on movie marathon Monday. Watch it on Blu-ray in this February.
“Lumpia with a Vengeance” Blu-ray (Photo courtesy of Kid Heroes Productions)
Anthony Maddela isn’t a trained movie critic, but he has opinions that reasonable people find agreeable.
More articles from Anthony Maddela
