Review: MISS SAIGON 25th-Anniversary Performance Captured Live on Film

15 years after it closed on Broadway and after the box-office success of the recent West End revival, MISS SAIGON is finally making a comeback early next year. Producer Cameron Mackintosh is bringing back this legendary musical to the Great White Way together with an exciting new cast led by Jon Jon Briones (The Engineer), Alistair Brammer (Chris), Rachelle Ann Go (Gigi), Devin Ilaw (Thuy), Katie Rose Clarke (Ellen), Nicholas Christopher (John), and Eva Noblezada (Kim).

To kick-start its return to Broadway, Universal Pictures has released the full-length live recording of its 25th-anniversary performance at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. This movie features the original cast of the recently-concluded West End revival with musical staging and choreography by Bob Avian (who also choreographed the original production) and directed by Laurence Connor.

What's immediately striking about this live recording is that the camera actually dictates the perspective for the movie audience. In actual live theater, audiences are looking at the performance from their seats but are practically free to wander around everything that's happening on stage. This film was edited in such a way that exits and entrances of performers and set changes are almost always unseen. This method presents an opportunity to put emphasis on the context of the scene, however, it also robs the movie viewers the delight in uncovering the unspoken nuances of the characters or the experience to be enamored by the lighting and stage design.

One example of the latter is the camera's obsession to resort to extreme close-ups. Yes, it does help the actor convey more successfully the particular emotion needed for a song or scene, but it also isolates the actor from what is also going on in his or her surrounding.

Having said those, this film has also captured some wonderful moments on stage as observed by the keen eye of film director Brett Sullivan. When Kim (Noblezada) sings "dream...the dream I long to find" at the beginning of Act 1, instead of a stage filled with prostitutes and GIs fooling around, the frame zooms in on an innocent-looking girl under a marquee that reads Dreamland (the name of the club). It's a simple yet powerful image of the irony of Kim's life at the moment. The dazzling costumes (Andreane Neofitou) and the enormous sets (Totie Driver and Matt Kinley) are also very much part of the spectacle created on stage. The staging of scenes such as "The Morning of the Dragon" and the seamless shift from present to the past in "Kim's Nightmare" are just two of the film's jaw-dropping numbers, each wonderfully translated on the big screen.

The book of MISS SAIGON is very much character-driven, and composers Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil have carefully assigned song numbers for each of these characters to accomplish their integral role in the story. There are also some noticeable lyric changes, making the songs more universal and less dated, and an addition of a brand new song for the character of Ellen.

Because the story really revolves around the love story of its two young leads, Chris (Brammer) and Kim (Noblezada), two of the show's most anticipated numbers are the popular duets "Last Night of the World" and "Sun and Moon." Brammer and Kim give just the right amount of emotion upon every line and their voices make us fall in love with the charming melodies Schönberg is known for.

Individually, Brammer and Noblezada can still squeeze a bit more oomph into their portrayals. Brammer is not quite the affectionate leading man in his supposed show-stopping solo number "Why, God, Why?" Noblezada, on the other hand, carries most of the show's emotional highs so for her to even finish the show and not embarrassing herself is in itself commendable. The only thing she needs to improve on is how she should pay close attention to her character's emotional journey. This is necessary so that, and this is no spoiler, when she kills herself in the end, her job is to get audiences to prevent her from doing it.

Undoubtedly, it's impossible to leave the cinema and not be fascinated with the business-minded and self-centered hustler called The Engineer (Briones). Thankfully, the entertainment value of this show rests on this character, and Briones takes on the role with ample energy and spot-on comedic timing. Briones was actually part of the ensemble in the original 1989 London cast. He also got nominated for an Olivier in 2014 for playing the role. Sure does he know how to get things done. When he repeatedly asks and sings "What's that I smell in the air?" I would have personally replied this way: an "American Dream" plus a Tony nod (fingers-crossed).

MISS SAIGON: The 25th-Anniversary Performance is shown exclusively in select SM Cinemas in the Philippines today, November 12, and tomorrow, November 13. It also includes the anniversary gala finale, which features the original 1989 London cast including Lea Salonga (Kim), Simon Bowman (Chris), and Jonathan Pryce (The Engineer). BOOK TICKETS ONLINE.

The film is also available on Blu-Ray.

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