Massacre of journalists inspired TV version of OTJ

THE HOOQ Original mini-series based on Erik Matti’s award-winning film On the Job (2013) has finally revealed the cast of its extended universe and how the series will be a departure from the original story.

The film, popularly known as OTJ, tells a complexly layered story of how politicians hire convicts to do assassinations outside the prison walls, and smuggle them back in when the job is done. The film starred Joel Torre as a hitman, Gerald Anderson as his apprentice, and Piolo Pascual as an NBI agent. The movie received a two-minute standing ovation when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. It was also screened at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea where it won the Jury Prize and a best actor award for Mr. Torre.

Set after the events of the first film yet tackling a different set of jobs, OTJ The Series: The

Missing 8, will focus not on convicts but on the media industry and politics.

The series (co-produced with Globe Studios and Reality Entertainment) will focus on the disappearance and killing of eight journalists in a small town a day before Christmas Eve, an event which bears a striking resemblance to the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre where 34 journalists and 24 others were killed because of political rivalry.

Mr. Matti, during the press conference on Nov. 8 at B Hotel in Quezon City, said that the series was “inspired by true events.”

The cast is led by Teroy Guzman who plays Sisoy, a corrupt media veteran who runs a small-town newspaper in the fictional town of La Paz and is on the payroll of the head of the town’s political family, Pedring, played by Nonoy Froilan. Actress Bella Padilla plays the Manila-based Pam, a passionate and honest “millennial” journalist (Ms. Padilla’s description during the conference) who jumps on the story of the missing eight and goes to La Paz where she meets Sisoy — who has just realized that his connection to the town’s ruling family won’t help him find out what happened to his friends.

And as a throwback to the original film, the series will include Roman, played by Neil Ryan Sese, a convict/assassin whose group was responsible for the killing and disappearance of the eight journalists. Leo Martinez, who played the corrupt General Pacheco in the film, will reprise his role “to tie everything (the film and the series) together,” said Mr. Matti.

Other cast members include Christopher de Leon, Smokey Manaloto, Dominic Ochoa, Jake Macapagal, Arjo Atayde, and Ria Atayde.

“[The series] takes on the same kind of energy [as the film],” said Mr. Matti before adding that the overall feel will have an “urgency to things that’s going to happen.”

And like the film, the characters won’t be black or white as the director described all of them as “gray” — “even if they kill, there’s a humanity to them.”

Mr. Matti said they aim to release the first two episodes of the six-episode series before Christmas. It will be available on the Asian video-on-demand service in all the markets it is in (Thailand, Philippines India and Indonesia), although Jeff Remigio, content and programming head of HOOQ Philippines, said the producers have mulled over releasing the entire series in one go, much like Netflix’s

House of Cards which unloaded the entire 13-episode first season in one day in 2013. —