Miracle in Cell No. 7

Nuel Crisostomo Naval's 2019 Filipino film is an adaptation of the Korean film of the same name. Joselito, who has an intellectual disability, is wrongly accused of the killing of a young girl and imprisoned. His cellmates make a plan to smuggle his daughter inside. The adaptation preserves the emotional structure of the original almost exactly. What carries into the Filipino context is the defencelessness of a poor, disabled person before the legal system, which corresponds directly to problems in the country's prisons and courts and gives the film local weight. Aga Muhlach leads. The film was a major box office success. Against that, the level of emotional manipulation is high; the music and the length of the scenes are set to draw tears, which wears some viewers down. Who it's for: those who like emotional family drama. Who it's not for: viewers who do not want to approach the killing of a child, or who have seen the original.