(M) Dubai (Quintos, 2005) Grade: C

Here's the synopsis: Summoning his younger brother Andrew (John Lloyd Cruz) to the city of Dubai, the financially stable Raffy (Aga Muhlach) -- a Filipino citizen who's spent several years overseas -- hopes his sibling can find work so that they can finally move to Canada. Unfortunately, Raffy doesn't expect Andrew to go falling in love with his ex-girlfriend, Faye (Claudine Barretto) -- a woman Raffy, in fact, still cares for very much.

I guess I shouldn't have expected much from a Filipino romance, but this movie got all kinds of hype and praise by fans. Then again, I really shouldn't trust Filipinos because they're all about the cheese and don't really care much about character development or plot hehe. This movie was pretty predictable, the ending was bleh and the relationship between the siblings was cheese. I will say this much, this movie made me cry but it could have been that I was in a very emotional place haha. It was pretty effective at being a tourism ad for Dubai. The place looks really nice and is supposedly really safe. Anyway, I was really hoping this would be a good movie because I LOVE Claudine Barretto and Aga Muhlach, but alas.

Two Claudine Barretto movies I recommend are: Anak and Milan. There's also Nasaan Ka Man which is more of a Sixth Sense/The Others type of movie.