What inspired Lumpia?
My brother Darriel and I have been making movies with our old Daly City neighborhood since we were 12 years old, back in 1989. While other kids went to the mall, played in the park, and watch MTV, we made movies. That was our hobby. That was our summer pastime. LUMPIA came about because both Dar and myself were home for the summer of 1996. I was on break from film school at USC (University of Southern California) and I was itching to go back to the neighborhood and shoot a reunion movie. Unlike the past “fun” movies we made with the neighborhood, we wanted a more sophisticated movie, both thematically and technically. At that time, Dar and I were into “El Mariachi”, a low budget Mexican action movie by my now-favorite filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. After reading his book “Rebel Without A Crew”, we wanted a Filipino version of El Mariachi. We played with that concept and the best we could think of was a mute “Lumpia”-throwing avenger. Yes, it was a ridiculous concept but what appealed to m
