[Amok] sweeps over the streets of Pasay City, on the outskirts of Manila, Philippines, with cheerful rap music. The city is home to many different types of people living all kinds of different lives: a young man who wants to become a famous basketball player; a mother and daughter who make their living selling skewered meats on the street; a crazy supporting actor; a homophobic taxi driver and a gay couple; and a short tempered ex-detective. But on the other side of these varying lives there is a savagery born from heartless city life. The movie starts off by carelessly capturing one afternoon in these lives, softening the strained tension. The slowly growing tension erupts in one explosive instant and the scattered lives are entwined into one fateful moment. At this moment, the director candidly exposes the violence of human nature and the hardened humanity that he has been hinting at in each scene. A rising Philippine director Lawrence Fajardo’s new release is a charming movie that charges unflinchingly toward its climax. (Jay SOHN)