Trese Review: Netflix’s comedy adaptation gives Filipino folklore a new twist

The Netflix animation show It wobbles took off with his portrayal of a Tikbalang, a Filipino folklore figure with horse and human body features. The modern version of the show of a drag race rushing through the streets of Manila feels like a scene out of one Fast and Furious Movie. But it also embodies the mischievous, ferocious character of the Tikbalang without compromising its original myths, which is surprising given the series’ contemporary lens. The Tikbalang, like the other mythical beings in Counter, are treated with the greatest respect. Her stories are designed to be accessible to audiences around the world. Representations of folklore and mythological figures from Roman, Greek, and Egyptian pantheons in the west have been popularized by the visual and print media for years, but Filipino folklore has never reached the United States in a form like this It wobbles.

The six-part horror thriller series follows Alexandra Trese, Manilas lakan babaylan, or guardians and healers. It acts as a bridge between the worlds of humanity and the supernatural, enforcing the agreements that have been made to keep the balance between the two worlds. She also investigates crimes of the supernatural world, particularly when the former begins to bleed into the natural world. The show finds her in medias res, when malevolent beings threaten to tip the balance between the two worlds on its side. It’s a violent and gritty show that modernizes Filipino bedtime stories and fancifully glosses over the socio-economic, political, and ultimately moral complexities of Manila and the Philippines as a whole.

Image: Netflix

The series adapts the award-winning one Comic book eponymous by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo. When the series began as a self-published, abstract, black and white monthly series in 2005, it was populated by Tan’s real-life experiences with a ghost in his house, Aswang bedtime stories, and American pop culture influences from comics like Batman, Hell boy and Sandman, Science fiction shows Karl Kolchak: The night stalker, X-Files, and CSI, and anime like Ghost in the shell. The comedy cast a magically realistic look at Manila, full of superstitions that devoured the creators on a daily basis. In 2018, Netflix officially gave the go-ahead for an animated version of the series.

The show is heavily supported by Filipino creators, with Tan and Baldisimo as showrunners and Filipino-American Jay Oliva from Justice League Dark as executive producer and director. The entire English-speaking and Tagalog-speaking cast is also of Filipino descent. The cast includes Shay Mitchell from Little lying beasts and Filipino celebrity Liza Soberano, as the two versions of Alexandra Trese. Darren Criss of joy, Dante Basco from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Manny Jacinto of The good place also take on roles. The Filipino talent that runs through every aspect of the series shows through, from Trese’s coat, which was inspired by national hero José Rizal, to the accents, popular slang, tribal music, and visual aesthetics of the city. Even the street food and brand names are authentic.

The series is compelling, with compelling Filipino folklore framed by supernatural criminal investigation. Each investigation works with a central passageway that blends into the shadows of each episode until it is finally brought to light. Character development for Trese and others creeps in while the stakes are apocalyptically high. Trese is a strong leader, a female protagonist whose intensity and mastery of her role between and in both worlds brings with it an unusual sense of seriousness and determination.

Image: Netflix

Although the show revolves around horror and crime, there are lighter moments to make up for the heavier, visually darker ones. Battle scenes are effective in highlighting each character’s strengths and weaknesses, but the show also emphasizes that not every problem needs to be resolved by force. Visually, Manila is hauntingly beautiful and chaotic. The compelling secret behind the origins of Alexandra’s bodyguards and her fascinating, multi-faceted allies makes it difficult to choose a favorite character from the long list of mythical creatures and humans.

These mythical creatures will sound familiar to Filipino audiences: they appear in bedtime stories of Filipino families to scare their children, and in school classes to fascinate children and educate them about various cultural aspects of the Philippines. Superstition and fear of the supernatural are widespread in the Philippines to this day, where it is common for people to report supernatural incidents from real life or seek spiritual diagnosis. Creatures like the Aswang beings date back to pre-colonization in the Philippines and were once attributes of pre-colonial religions.

It wobbles uses myths like the White Lady on Balete Drive to set the tone for the series and bring home the distinctive take that started the comics. Creatures like the tikbalang or the dwarf-like Ancestor of the hill Bring to life a commonality between humans and nature that is typically used to encourage respect and concern for the environment. Seeing Nuno sa punso’s character as a useful source of information gives him a refreshingly new complexity and draws a compelling analogy to what humanity can learn from nature. The criminal activity and political engagement of the Aswang also lend a humanizing element to a historically terrifying creature of the night.

The character Talagbusao is a region-specific number in the Philippines. Unlike the carnivorous Aswang or Nuno sa Punso, it’s not known across the country – it’s hidden in the folklore of the Mindanao region. Similar, Santelmo is not known nationwide, but its popularity is slowly growing as interest in Filipino folklore grows. Some of these characters get their distinctive looks straight from folklore, while others have been updated and customized through their business decisions and illegal activities, including black market organ sales and the inaugural drag racing. The leader of the Tikbalang sets the tone for this mix of old and new while working from the top floor of a skyscraper – with a forest in it.

Image: Netflix

Like so many new animations, It wobbles is styled after Japanese anime, but it is the first animated series from BASE Entertainment, an entertainment studio based in Jakarta, Singapore. It is also the first Filipino animated series developed for a global audience. And it is uncompromising in its cultural peculiarity. The west often associates the Philippines with images of tropical paradises, however It wobbles presents it as a complex world full of police brutality, corruption and economic inequality. While the show cannot offer one-size-fits-all solutions to these problems, they are culturally just like the other details of the show. And they sadly address current Filipino politics, but with little glimmers of hope and stress that good people will continue to fight every night for those who cannot.

Using aspects of Filipino culture with varying degrees of subtlety, It wobbles balances moments of joy with the necessary violence without falling into stereotypes. The narrative looks deep into Filipino folklore with integrity and offers Filipino viewers an opportunity to look beyond the evils they must fear while enlightening other viewers about supernatural traditions from around the world. At the same time, the show emphasizes that not all evil is supernatural. This is a show by Filipinos for Filipinos, but its creators are more than ready to share their culture with the world – if it dares to walk into the dark.

The six-part first season of It wobbles is now streaming on Netflix.

[Ed. note: The author of this article is distantly related to Trese voice actor Liza Soberano, but has never interacted with her, and that connection was not a factor in this review.]