The Pearl of the Orient

SYNOPSIS Manila, the Philippines. 1962. A lovely city surrounded by paradise, with clean air engulfing it and history being rewritten underneath it. Twenty years have passed since Quezon lost to the invaders of the Rising Sun, making the Philippines surrender to the Empire of Japan after the events of the Battle of Bataan. Though the Empire these days has been plagued with many problems both internally and externally, the Filipino people find themselves under the authoritarian rule of the Japanese for the last two decades. Defiance, on the other hand, is on the rise. The united resistance organizations of Hukbalahap under Luis Taruc, the United Democratic Front of Ramon Magsaysay & Lorenzo Tañada, and Carlos Romulo's Commonwealth remnants have become more and more of a pain on the government's side. Juan Laxamana, a civil servant who is secretly an operative of the united resistance organization, must save his old friend Karl and get him out of the country. He, along with a group of pro-independence sympathizers, will soon find themselves as fugitives in the midst of the growing unrest. Juan's wife, Maria, is lured into a world more horrific than she could have imagined. And the last person to be feared is Takeshi Kido, the calculating head of the Kempeitai stationed in Manila. A war veteran, cunning, brilliant, ruthless, and a hunter of men.