Feng Shui

Starring the famed Filipina celebrity, Kris Aquino, Feng Shui is a Filipino horror film that showcases the popular superstitions that many people in the Philippines are constantly aware of. Created in 2004, and written and produced by an almost entirely Filipino and Filipino-American film crew, Feng Shui reveals a side of the Filipino culture that not many people notice as being part of their actual culture. Although not necessarily being automatically associated with the Filipino culture, there are various indications that superstition is almost as powerful as religion in the Philippines.

The entire film revolves around an old ‘bagua’ mirror that is cursed—in which bagua literally means ‘eight symbols’ or eight diagrams and they are “used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of interrelated concepts”. This bagua, at least in Filipino tradition, is a mirror that is deemed to shower luck to whoever its owner is and is supposed to bring death upon those who are near to him/her, in this case Kris Aquino’s character, Joy. This is the main plot of the story, in which everyone around Joy dies, as the main character seemingly gets luckier. It starts by the curse of the ‘bagua’ affecting people whom she knows, then gradually moves in towards her closer inner circle of people that she cares about. Eventually she realizes she must reject the luck in order to save lives, but by the time she realizes it, it is already too late and the curse lives on.

The importance of this centerpiece of the film is that many Filipino households have this bagua on their front doors, showing that there is a sense of their strong belief in superstitions, otherwise they wouldn’t display it on their front doors. Just as someone would have the Crucifix (a Christian figure) or leaves from Palm Sunday (a Catholic day of obligation), by having the bagua on their front door alongside one of these religious symbolic figures, it shows how much they are willing to equate their superstition with their religion.

Although it is a bit confusing to think about such a religious nation being so superstitious, I personally believe this strong belief in superstitions stems from many of the more indigenous areas in the Philippines that were not so affected by the Christian/Catholic influence that was forced upon the Philippines. Before the influx of Christianity and missionaries sweeping the island of old seemingly black magic-like rituals, the Filipinos lived their lives among witch doctors and sacrificial rituals that still influences the superstitions that Filipinos have today. This film not only shows the significance of superstitions being part of the Filipino culture, but it helps to give Filipinos and Filipino-Americans an idea of how superstition and religion coincide with one another in one household.