Ten Little Mistresses (Tagalog: Sampung Mga Kerida) is a 2023 Filipino murder mystery comedy directed by Jun Robles Lana. The first Filipino work to be produced by Amazon Studios, it stars an ensemble cast led by Eugene Domingo, Pokwang, and John Arcilla.
Recently-widowed billionaire Don Valentin (Arcilla) invites his mistresses to his lavish estate. The ten flashy women try to compete to become Don Valentin's wife... only for him to turn up dead, and all of them as suspects in his murder. It falls to his loyal majordomo, Lilith (Domingo) to find the murderer.
The film was released on Prime Video on February 15, 2023.
Previews: Teaser Trailer
, Trailer
Tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The trailer describes the film as a "murderous mistress mystery".
- And Starring: The trailer rattles off the entire cast list before giving the murder victim's actor, John Arcilla, the "and" credit. The credits of the film do the same, while giving a "special participation" credit to Cherry Pie Picache (who plays Valentin's deceased wife).
- Catchphrase:
- One of the younger mistresses, Because, is called such because a video of her coyly asking "Because?" went viral. She frequently asks "because?" in the same way when prompting other characters.
- Constantin peppers his dialogue with an exuberant "Amazing!".
- Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: At Don Valentin's funeral, Lilith is confronted by the mistresses for murdering him. She pulls down her black dress to reveal a red dress underneath while admitting she's a mastermind.
- Dance Party Ending: The movie ends with Lilith, Chicket, and the titular ten mistresses having a party at Don Valentin's mansion, dancing, and drinking while the police arrive to investigate the murders.
- Everybody Did It: Downplayed. While Lady H and Lilith did put poison pills in Valentin's medicine box, it is revealed in the end that Helga and Babet also did so. This means that 3 out of 10 mistresses beside Lilith (who is Valentin's majordomo and his fiancé) were guilty of killing him.
- Everyone Is a Suspect: In the trailer, Lady H declares that all ten mistresses are suspects in their lover's death.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: One of the younger mistresses, Moon Young, styles herself as South Korean and even sprinkles Korean words in her dialogue. When Coco asks if she is of Korean descent, Moon Young admits she just does it for fun.
- Fortune Teller: Aura, one of the mistresses, themes herself after a fortune-teller. She carries around a big ball evocative of a Crystal Ball and dramatically declares that someone will die that night. However, she then gives a useless clue.
- Gardening-Variety Weapon: In the climax Constantin picks up a rake and starts attacking the mistresses with it.
- Honey Trap: It is revealed that Lilith seduced Valentin into becoming her future second husband as part of her revenge plan against him and his twin brother Constantin for their mistreatment of Valentin's late wife Charo.
- Hypocrite: Coco, one of the mistresses, complains multiple times about how antifeminist and patriarchal pitting ten mistresses against each other is. The other women point out that she still showed up and reaped the benefits of being Valentin's mistress, so she has no right to be holier-than-thou.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: The only ways to tell twins Valentin and Constantin apart is that Valentin has a trademark birthmark on his butt and a nut allergy.
- Inheritance Murder: Lilith posits that one of the mistresses may have slain Don Valentin because each mistress is due to receive Php 200,000,000 (roughly 3.7 million USD) upon his death. Constantin reminds her that he had recently amended his will to leave everything to Lilith, and so she actually stands to gain the most from his death.
- Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Helga and Diva's rivalry is primarily because Diva tends to copy her former boss Helga's outfits, mannerisms, and dialogue.
- The Killer in Me: Secretive Killer type. Lilith is revealed to be one of Don Valentin's killers, who pretends to solve Valentin's murder and later kills his twin brother Constantin while framing him as the killer.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's unclear if Aura can actually communicate with the dead, or if she's just completely full of it.
- Meaningful Name: Don Valentin, the murder victim, had a whopping ten mistresses, fitting for such a sensual name.
- The Mistress: Exaggerated to the point of parody. Valentin has a whopping ten flashy and spoiled mistresses who see each other as rivals and who want to be his legal wife. It is occasionally commented that the entire setup is extremely antifeminist.
- The One Guy: Variation, one of the ten "mistresses" is actually the nonbinary "fairy" Lady H, who is here on behalf of their sister, Valentin's actual mistress.
- Plastic Bitch: Helga, a plastic surgeon, points out that several of her vain and bitchy fellow mistresses have gotten Botox done. She's especially irritated at Diva, her former assistant, whose face she made over and now has the gall to copy everything she does.
- Running Gag:
- Diva copies nearly everything Helga says and does, and will frequently translate or reword Helga's dialogue to the latter's disdain.
- Everyone who describes Valentin's signature deodorant takes great pains to describe its scent as "fresh peppermint with a hint of ripe cucumbers and juniper berries" in full.
- Settle for Sibling: As part of his "plan", Valentin left everything to Lilith, killed and replaced his twin brother Constantin, and now intends to seduce Lilith as Constantin and marry her to regain his wealth. Though subverted, as this was a fake motive Lilith told the other women.
- Taught by Television: Chicket noticed that Valentin's corpse is pink, which is a sign of cyanide poisoning, despite Lady H's claims that they used rat poison pills to kill Valentin. Chicket learn it from an actual show that she's a fan of called Sherlock Jr.
- Theme Twin Naming: Twins Valentin and Constantin.
- Twin Switch: Valentin's identical twin brother Constantin turns up the night he was murdered, casting suspicion on what really happened.
- Lilith's initial explanation is that Valentin is really alive, killed his twin in his stead, and is now posing as him. But that's actually false: The murder victim really was Valentin, and Constantin was killed as part of Lilith's scheme. No twin switch occurred during the murder, though she made it seem as if there was.
- Lilith claims that Valentin knew Constantin would pose as him to have sex with his wife, and cites this incident as a motive for revenge.
