Series / Zorro (2009)

Zorro is a Filipino live action television series that ran from March to August 2009, based on the character of the same name created by Johnston McCulley. It was produced by GMA Television under license from Sony Pictures Television, Inc. and Zorro Productions, Inc. Directed by Mark A. Reyes and Dominic Zapata, the series ran for 98 episodes. GMA would later make several other historical-themed series, starting with Amaya in 2011.

While the plot is largely original, a few of the characters and archetypes are drawn from the original series. The series is a setting update, bringing the plot from Pueblo de Los Angeles in Spanish California to the town of Angeles, Pampanga in the Spanish Philippines. The titular protagonist is a Filipino Mestizo named Antonio Pelaez, son and heir of a wealthy aristocrat and his wife. He soon finds out that he was secretly adopted, and that he was actually the son of a native peasant woman and a Californio man, whose brother was none other than Don Diego De la Vega (Jomari Yllana) himself. Under his uncle's tutelage, he dons the mask of the fox and begins a fight against the oppression of the common people against the Spanish government under Governor Aragon (Eddie Gutierrez). Meanwhile, as Antonio, he must temper his own desire for revenge and keep his double life a secret, even from his true love, the beautiful aristocrat Lolita Pulido (Rhian Ramos). Zorro's activities also inspire a local group of masked outlaws known as the Caballeros, who were recruited by a mysterious figure known as Don Rosso.

The entire series is available on YouTube.

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The series provides examples of the following tropes:

• The Ace: Don Roberto is a skilled swordsman, shrewd businessman, and a principled nobleman who overshadowed his brother in everything. Part of his disappointment with Antonio was that he wasn't one himself (at first).
• Action Girl: Juana, Antonio's childhood friend, joins the group of outlaws known as the Caballeros.
• Action Prologue: The story begins in media res with Zorro himself coming to the rescue of a falsely accused Padre Felipe, who was slated to be publicly executed by the governor himself. From there, it flashbacks to his origin story.
• Adaptational Location Change: From Early 19th Century California to Mid 19th Century Philippines (though the pueblos involved share similar names). As both are part of Spanish colonial history, this isn't as jarring as it could have been. Justified in-universe as the Zorro followed is Don Diego's long-lost nephew. Incidentally, there are no endemic or introduced species of foxes in the Philippines, only flying foxes, but that's another superhero.
• Always Someone Better: Ramon is shown to be Antonio's superior in both riding and swordplay, which fuels the sibling rivalry friction between their fathers, where the case was reversed. Eventually reversed when Antonio becomes Zorro and thus gets the better of Ramon.
• Anachronism Stew: Although set in the 1840s, the clothing styles, architecture, and technology shown in the series are more appropriate for the 1870s.
  • When the Bellas of the bordello end up working for Shihong, they wear form-fitting modern cut cheongsams, which didn't exist until the 20th Century.
  • Dynamite and Gatling guns, all invented in the 1860s, become a part of the heroes' and villains' arsenals, respectively, toward the latter half of the series. This can be handwaved somewhat based on the steampunk elements already introduced in the story. What is also noticeable is the absence of steamships, which would suit the setting quite well.
  • The pirates appear to be a pastiche of cartoon 18th Century pirates and 17th Century Chinese pirates, though they noticeably use a European sailing ship (which they may have commandeered).
• Artful Dodger: Pepe, Antonio's servant boy and Zorro's sidekick, is a street-savvy child who knows his way around the back-alleys of colonial Angeles.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The Pulidos (Lolita's parents) butt heads like any stereotypical married couple would but are also shown to be quite affectionate in spite of it. This hits Lolita's mother Doña Catalina hard when her husband is executed.
• Big Bad: The series' overarching villain is the governor in charge of Angeles, Luis Aragon.
• California Doubling: The compound the crew filmed in (now the Las Casas Filipinas living history museum and resort) is in the province of Bataan, but stood in for both Angeles, Pampanga, and—in an inversion of the trope—the coast of California.
• Church Militant: After the authorities burned his church and killed his sacristan, who he loved as a son, local Good Shepherd Padre Felipe begs Don Rosso to let him join the Caballeros. In this capacity, he still performs the functions of a priest.
• Dance of Romance: Subverted. Don Carlos and Doña Catalina noticed that their daughter's first dance with Antonio had all the hallmarks of this, but Antonio's need to keep his secret identity under wraps meant that he had to deliberately blow it.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The Spanish authorities and the aristocrats, including Antonio's cousin and rival Ramon, looked down on the indigenous people (then known as indios) and see them as little better than laborers and slaves. Ramon particularly loves rubbing it in on Antonio's face.
• Don't Create a Martyr: In a fit of ahistorical genre savvy ^note By the 19th Century, the Spanish authorities had the nasty habit of executing prominent civil dissenters in rather public executions, which ended up inspiring further dissent. Famous examples include the priests Gomes, Burgos, and Zamora, who inspired the Jose Rizal and his compatriots in the Propaganda movement, and Jose Rizal's own execution which preceded the Philippine revolutionary war., Governor Aragon and Ramon refuse to publicly execute Zorro until they could placate the crowd who rallied toward him, but make a show of it by making them choose between Zorro and their children.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Ramon Pelaez is shown to have his own plans parallel to that of the governor.
• Enemy Civil War: Toward the end of the series, the heads of the Spanish garrison try to screw each other over. Ramon finds out that Governor Aragon was mining gold from his father's land, prompting him to want to stop the governor from fleeing and taking the gold for himself.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Antonio and Ramon spent the early part of the former's birthday racing horses in the countryside, showing a rivalry between them that was still quite friendly. Ramon took pleasure in seeing Antonio be second best, and is subtly alluded to as one reason why Antonio is seen as a layabout.
  • Antonio comes to the defense of Juana, whose family has served his for years, when Ramon tried to beat her for refusing to serve him wine when she believed him to be underage. Ramon dismisses her as little more than an indigenous servant who should do as she is told and strikes her for talking out of turn.
• Evil Colonialist: The racist, condescending, Ramon and the cruel, greedy, governor embody the worst aspects of Spanish colonial rule in the 19th Century Philippines. Their machinations drew money from overtaxing the wealthy and middle classes while enslaving the poor and forcing them off their lands.
• Expy: Although this Zorro isn't Don Diego, a lot of the characters that are associated with him appear in the show.
  • Don Antonio's love interest is Lolita Pulido. She and her parents share similar names with Zorro's love interest in The Curse of Capistrano. Don Diego himself has a special someone back home, but her name is never mentioned onscreen.
  • One of Zorro's allies is a mute man named Bernardo. Bernardo appears as Don Diego's trusted servant and ally in various incarnations of Zorro.
  • Ramon shares his name with Zorro's military rival in various incarnations of the franchise.
  • Sgt. Gonzales is a less comical version of various sergeants who work under Captain Ramon.
  • Zorro's signature black horse is named Buhawi (Tagalog for Tornado), paralleling the name of Don Diego's steed.
• Fallen Princess: Ramon's machinations rob the Pulidos of their wealth and land, forcing Lolita and her mother Catalina to work as maids in the household of the evil Doña Chiquita. This was all part of a ploy for Ramon to force Lolita to marry him.
• The Gadfly: Lolita's father, Don Carlos Pulido, is an outspoken and often obnoxious critic of the Spanish government. Because of this (and perhaps the fact that he's a Principalia or indigenous noble), he and his family lost their land to the government. His reputation continued well after his death, as Chiquita claims to have heard him in her dungeon cell when she starts losing her mind.
• Gatling Good: The Ultimo Armas Ramon brags about is a Gatling gun, a rapid-firing precursor to the machine gun that made quick work of whatever force it was pit against. Its unbelievable superiority against the slow-firing muskets they've previously been using is used to chilling effect against rebelling peasants and pirate armies alike, and observers who see the corpses are understandably unnerved by its effects.
• Harmful to Minors: Governor Aragon has no problems using kidnapping peasant children to use as child slave laborers in gold mines.
• Happily Adopted: Zigzagged with Antonio's parentage. His adoptive mother Doña Chiquita was cold and distant to him, while his adoptive father Don Roberto was not happy with his son's layabout ways. Father and son reconcile when they reveal their identities to one another as Zorro and Don Rosso, respectively. Antonio still sees Don Roberto as his father.
• The Heavy: While the governor is the real big bad, he is not Zorro's archnemesis. This role goes to Ramon, as both he and Antonio have personal reasons to fight one another.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • After wanting to capture Zorro for the government in exchange for a substantial reward, Chinese merchant Shihong eventually mellows out and becomes less overtly mean (though no less money-grubbing). He takes in the bordello girls as employees and provides the Pulidos a place to stay, and later calls on his brother to heal Bernardo when he was seriously injured.
  • Sgt. Pedro Gonzales, after being on the side of the governor for too long, releases Zorro from his captivity and defects, though not before getting killed by one of his former subordinates.
• Heroic Bastard: Antonio's true parentage reveals him to be the illegitimate son of a bordello madam and a Californio man. His birth mother claims that she never wanted to part with him and looked forward to marrying her lover so they could be together. The story was confirmed by none other than Don Diego de la Vega, his birth father's brother, who also brought the news that Antonio's birth father had since died.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: The quirky bordello girls—the Bellas—in the house Antonio was born in are allies to both Antonio in his civilian and secret identities. Their matron, Antonio's mother, was also one as well.
• Impoverished Patrician: The Pulidos have become this at the beginning, as Don Carlos' criticism have drawn the ire of the colonial government. Catalina's desire to remain in high society is what leads her to goad Lolita into marrying someone extremely wealthy.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Don Roberto sees his feckless layabout son as a disappointment unfit to inherit his wealth and holdings. Fortunately, he and his son turn out to be much more alike than they realize.
• Like Brother and Sister: Antonio and Juana grew up together, and both this and both his social class blinded him to her feelings for him.
• Love Dodecahedron: One that settles nicely as the series progresses. Juana, daughter of Antonio's nursemaid, grew up with Antonio and fell in love with him in secret, but in all his identities Antonio only has romantic feelings for Lolita. Lolita herself is in love with a random indigenous stranger, Don Antonio, and Zorro (who are all the same person). Ramon is himself in love with Lolita and plans to force her to marry him, while Juana in turn becomes the object of Bernardo's affections. Juana, of course, chooses Bernardo.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Maria Manalo, Don Antonio's nursemaid and nanny, acted as this to her charge as the woman he believed to be his mother wasn't especially maternal.
  • The Pulido's Old Retainer Nana Sita served as a secondary maternal figure to Lolita.
• Passing the Torch: Don Diego himself oversees his nephew's training as the new Zorro in an effort to steer him away from a desire for revenge. Like his uncle before him, Antonio's time as the Fox turned him into a beloved hero of the people and a thorn in the side of the garrison at the Presidio.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Shihong is a greedy yet cowardly merchant. His brother, Tahong, is the upright head of a Chinese monastery and is a wise Old Master. While Shihong is at best an unscrupulous ally to the heroes and has to be bought, Tahong is nothing but helpful and charitable in the times he appears, acting as a mentor and medic to the heroes.
• Rebellious Princess: Lolita takes after her father Don Carlos in being a firebrand with strong opinion. Her first scenes have her affirm her father's statements that the government is incompetent.
• Saintly Church: Padre Felipe Gomez's parish church serves as a home for those who have fallen on hard times. Naturally, the Spanish governor's men set it on fire.
• Shipper on Deck: Perhaps in no small part due to their need to marry her off to someone rich, the Pulidos were initially quite supportive of the idea of Lolita and Antonio together. On top of that, they picked up on the two's chemistry right away when they started dancing, comparing it to their own dance years ago.
• Sibling Rivalry:
  • Ramon, Antonio's adoptive cousin and Arch-Enemy, considers himself Antonio's brother after his uncle and aunt (actually his birth mother) took him in after his father's death.
  • Their fathers were shown to be this as well. Comandante Horacio gained pleasure from seeing his son beat Antonio as it allowed him to get the better of his brother Don Roberto.
  • A less dramatically charged version is Shihong and Tahong. Tahong is older by a few minutes and enjoys a lot more respect as the head of a Kung Fu temple. Of course, unlike the Pelaez family, the twins respect each other enough to come to each other's aid.
• Sibling Yin-Yang:
  • Antonio is heroic and is sympathetic to the plight of the peasants, while Ramon is classist, abusive, misogynistic, and an out and out Evil Colonialist.
  • Merchant Shihong and Kung Fu master Tahong are Polar Opposite Twins.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Spanish authorities under Aragon make it a point to kidnap random indigenous peasants and make them work as slave laborers. He even had children work within his secret gold mine. Note that by this point in history, slavery had long since been legally outlawed in the Spanish Philippines. In-universe, it is justified somewhat as indentured servitude for those who couldn't pay their taxes by the Commandante Horacio who made it slavery in all but name.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Comandante Horacio is the first villain encountered in the show, establishing him to be a haughty, arrogant and vindictive man who believed in keeping rivals in their place by crushing them immediately. He had dissenters executed on the spot and was also the guy who brought up the idea that indigenous peasants can be used as slave labor if they were accused of crime or couldn't pay money for taxes. Although he dies in a riot unwittingly instigated by Antonio, he set in motion everything that his nephew will fight against long before that.
• The Smurfette Principle: Juana, as Caballera, is the only female member of the Caballeros.
• Steampunk: The show crosses over this in the later episodes upon the arrival of El Caballo, a horse-shaped steam-powered tank mounted with Gatling guns.
• Those Two Guys: The young, small, and Wise Beyond Their Years Pepe and the mute yet literate Bernardo work as Zorro's allies and are often found together. Juana rounds them off as a power trio.
• Translation Convention: Both the indigenous and mixed Filipinos and the Spanish speak modern Tagalog peppered with (at times subtitled) Spanish in regular conversation. Some scenes show Spanish foreigners (e.g. Don Diego, Lolita's grandmother) speaking only in Spanish, indicating a language barrier. It can be understood that the Spanish authorities and nobles speak Spanish among themselves while the indigenous peoples are speaking their own languages (and the Spanish authorities are speaking the indigenous languages when making announcements to the commoners). Truth in Television, as the Spanish did not make it a point to teach their language to the commoners but learned the commoner languages instead to relay instructions.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Love square, at one point. Lolita Pulido first finds herself falling in love with a kind young man she knows only as "Indio" (native), then slowly falls for the seemingly callous yet secretly good-natured Don Antonio Pelaez, and then eventually develops feelings for the heroic El Zorro. They're all the same guy.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Don Carlos Pulido is a short, rotund, and somewhat rough around the edges old nobleman who sired the beautiful Lolita.
• Upper-Class Twit: Initially played straight but subverted with Antonio. At first, he was just a spoiled rich kid, albeit one who wasn't at all cruel to the peasants under him. To keep Lolita from finding out about his secret identity, Antonio deliberately played this up, making himself look like the obnoxious and very racist colonial-era aristocrat that Lolita personally finds repulsive in a vain attempt to have her not fall in love with him.
• Vigilante Man: Besides Zorro himself, the series also has the Caballeros, a clandestine group of masked rebels inspired by the Fox who fight against the governor's men.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Pepe is remarkably savvy for a youngster and often provides Zorro with advice on matters that one would not expect a child his age to know, such as romance.
• Wounded Hero, Weaker Helper: Pepe, Zorro's sidekick, had at one point been forced to carry an injured Zorro until they could find help.
• You Killed My Father: Antonio inadvertently causing Horacio's death is what fueled Ramon's enmity toward him, which becomes mutual when Ramon unwittingly kills Antonio's birth-mother.