Northern Lights: A Journey To Love (A Filipino Movie Starring Piolo Pascual And Yen Santos)

Northern Lights starring Piolo Pascual.

Northern Lights: A Journey To Love is a Filipino romantic drama film starring Piolo Pascual, Yen Santos, and Raikko Mateo. Directed by Dondon Santos, Northern Lights tells the tale of two people looking for something and someone in their lives. The glue that connected them together is a young child whose mother is on the brink of dying.

Formerly titled Once In A Lifetime, Northern Lights was shot in Queenstown which is a resort town along the coast of New Zealand's South Island. New Zealand was used as a substitute for Alaska which is among the main settings in the film. The movie took its name from the famous northern lights in Alaska. This is a natural phenomenon more popularly known as the Aurora Borealis. It can be observed in North America and parts of Europe.

Northern Lights is a collaboration project by Star Cinema, Regal Films, and Spring Films which is Pascual's own film production company. In the movie, Piolo plays an OFW in Alaska named Charlie. When he moved to Alaska with his parents, Charlie left behind in the Philippines his already pregnant girlfriend. He promised to come back for her but when he did, he found out that his girlfriend met another man. Dejected, he went back to Alaska and lived a promiscuous life.

Things changed when Charlie learned that his former girlfriend is dying and that she's sending their son (Charlie Jr.) to Alaska to live with him. Charlie Jr. met another passenger on the plane named Angel (played by Yen Santos) who served as her travelling partner and guardian for the trip. The three characters convene in Alaska and embark on a journey that will change the course of their lives forever.

Also starring in Northern Lights: A Journey To Love are Tirso Cruz III, Joel Torre, Sandy Andolong, Maricar Reyes, Glydel Mercado, Jerald Napoles, Anna Vicente, K Brosas, and David Chua. The movie will be released in theaters on March 29. Prior to appearing in Northern Lights, Pascual starred in last year's Love Me Tomorrow and A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery.

The Popular Cartoon Series Johnny Bravo Was Created By A Filipino Animator Named Van Partible

Johnny Bravo is without a doubt one of the most iconic television cartoons from the late 1990s to the first five years of the 21st century. Even today, more than a decade after the show's last season, hundreds of television networks from all over the world still regularly air reruns of the popular animated show. Johnny Bravo's image is itself an icon. The yellow brushed-up hair. The dark sunglasses. The black t-shirt. The bulging muscles. The character's easily recognizable even from miles away.

Even today, the show is a mainstay in Philippine television, entertaining children and adults alike on Saturday and Sunday mornings. But here's a bit of information that the millions of Filipino fans of the show probably don't know. Johnny Bravo was created by a Filipino. His name is Van Partible and he started working on the character while studying at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He was born in Manila but his family migrated to the United States in the 1970s while he was still a baby.

The show had its beginnings in Loyola Marymount University. Partible was working on his senior thesis project which he called Mess O'Blues. The animated film was about an Elvis impersonator. After graduation, Partible didn't have the experience nor the portfolio to be accepted in the animation studios so he started working in a daycare program for a local elementary school. Things changed when Partible's animation professor, Dan McLaugglin, showed Mess O'Blues to a friend of his that worked for Hannah-Barbera Cartoons (an animation studio). The studio loved the film and they eventually asked Partible to create a series of cartoons based on it. And so Johnny Bravo was born. The rest is history.

Why was the show named Johnny Bravo?
According to Partible, the name came from an episode of the American sitcom The Brady Brunch. The episode was called Adios, Johnny Bravo. Interestingly, Partible's full name is Efrem Giovanni Bravo Partible. Giovanni is an Italian name for Johnny. That said, the show's name was also derived from the creator's full name.

Here are a few interesting bits of trivia about the animated show Johnny Bravo:
1) Seth MacFarlane was part of the crew for the show's first season. MacFarlane is the creator of Family Guy, American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show. He also directed the comedy films Ted, Ted 2, and A Million Ways to Die in the West.
2) The series has received seven nominations from the Annie Awards, YoungStar Award, and Golden Reel Awards. The show didn't win any of these nominations.
3) A video game based on the series called Johnny Bravo: Date-O-Rama! was released for the PlayStation2 and Nintendo DS gaming consoles.
4) In 2002, Warner Brothers Pictures secured the rights to a live-action film based on the show. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is being considered to play the character.