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The viewer rarely knows what goes on behind the scenes of a production. Chona, the Killer Pig (1990) was shot in sepia because the camera was damaged, one of the actors was swarmed by ants while recording a scene, and special smoke effects were created using fire extinguishers. The first Puerto Rican television film was shot in a matter of hours and completed the same day it premiered on Valentine's Day. While the first half hour was broadcast on Wapa, the rest was edited.
“Sometimes one of the 'manga productions' comes up with incredible things,” says Luis Molina Casanova, director of the film, which he believes ruined the couple's plans that Valentine's Day.
“It was a great opportunity to take part in a project with a talented team, because at the same time we were shooting, the librettist was there and everyone involved in the production contributed, which was not so systematic. There was also an element of improvisation, because throughout the day we saw that phrases were added, deleted and everything was adjusted,” recalls Molina Casanova of the production and script by Emmanuel “Sunshine” Logroño.
After three decades, the killer pig returns to change the lives of three families. The second part of the film, this time directed by Logroño, opens in cinemas this Thursday, February 29th.
“Chona the Killer Pig was a dream I always had because I always said: Japan has Godzilla, the United States has King Kong, Puerto Rico needs a local monster and that's where Chona the Killer Pig comes from,” Logroño said , who understands that it is unfair to compare the direction and results of both films.
“It’s unfair to compare”
“They were different situations. It's unfair to compare because Luis had one day to do this. I basically had two months of pre-production time, something we didn't have on Chona 1. In the second we had a huge team. When we were finished, about 200 jobs were created, including direct and indirect jobs,” Sunshine said.
The cast of Chona 2 includes Denise Quiñones, Aurelio “Yeyo” Lima, Marian Pabón, Yamaris Latorre, Luis Gonzaga, Camila Monclova, Giovani Vázquez and Alejandro Carpio.
The film's pre-production began five years ago and filming was completed in 2021.
“We had a few small problems, Hurricane María (2017) and the pandemic (2020), which interrupted our filming flow, the filming locations were completely changed. We had to readjust everything, but basically we spent about a month and a half filming and we succeeded,” noted Logroño.
The script of the first feature film focuses on the mission of a businessman named Rodríguez & Rodríguez (played by José Miguel Agrelot (1927-2004), who wanted to make the pig bigger in order to be able to sell more products. The sequel takes place 30 years later, when his son tries to fulfill his parents' last wish.
In addition, “there are three different stories that gradually come together and the common denominator at the end is the presence of Chona, so as not to create a 'spoiler',” the director added.
Likewise, the sequel will feature the first pig in computer-generated imagery (CGI) “and a lot of people will be surprised to see so much CGI in a Puerto Rican production, which they might see in Marvel or DC, but they will “to see it in a movie from here,” he expected.
Logroño did not rule out the creation of a third part for Chona, the murderous pig.