Weng Weng: the Fillipino James Bond
Most people who say they like movies that are so bad they’re good don’t know the half of it.
It’s one thing to laugh uproariously at some half-arsed bilge tossed out by Hollywood for a budget that dwarfs the GDP of most countries. It’s another to find a passion project online made by a YouTuber with more passion than budget. Or sense. Those are small fry, though. You can keep your The Rooms, your Birdemics, and any other famously bad movie that you half expect was made that way on purpose to become a meme. The real test of how bad a movie you can handle comes in the filmography of one extremely short man.
Born Ernesto de Guzman de la Cruz in September 1957, Weng Weng was always going to be on the small side. He was born very premature and was described upon birth by his doctor as “no bigger than a small Coke bottle”. This, combined with a form of primordial dwarfism, meant that once the young Ernesto reached the height of two feet and nine inches, he would stay that height for the rest of his days. Despite his condition, the young Ernesto became a popular kid in his neighbourhood, his charismatic and charming personality making his mother Rita believe that her son could have a career as an actor.
This was something that Ernesto himself had dreamed of from an early age. As a kid, Ernesto developed a passion for action movies. These led him first to climb around his neighbourhood, doing acrobatic tricks on his neighbour’s washing lines, before the slightly safer option of taking karate lessons became available. Despite his size, Ernesto was a natural at karate, and while taking these lessons, he caught the attention of movie producer Peter Caballes, who saw money in the bite-sized Bruce Lee.
What sort of films did Weng Weng make?
Caballes fast-tracked Ernesto into films made by the production company he worked for, Lilliw Productions. Now, even within the context of being in the Philippines in the mid-1970s, this was hardly Hollywood. These were micro-budget martial arts pictures that couldn’t afford to have a second of footage recorded that didn’t end up in the final film. These pictures needed all the promotion they could get, and the moment that Ernesto turned up in one in 1975, the company knew they’d found someone they could build a film around.
A year later, he’d made his first credited appearance in a motion picture under the stage name he’d retain for the rest of his days. The newly christened Weng Weng became a sensation in his home country, making appearances in higher profile pictures before getting his first starring role in 1981 with a genuine contender for one of the best bad movies ever made. Weng Weng took the title role in the James Bond parody/homage Agent 00, a role he’d reprise in two subsequent pictures, For Your Height Only, the same year and 1983’s The Impossible Kid.
These films made Weng Weng a cult hero, with For Your Height Only in particular being one of the most highly distributed Filipino pictures of its era. Weng Weng might have made a fine career out of his martial arts ability combined with his height, but as you can imagine, that combination wasn’t great for his health. He retired in 1987 due to recurring health problems and passed away in 1992, at the tragically young age of 34.
None of this, not the circumstances of his birth, nor his stature, nor his objectively awful movies, stops him from being a genuine cult hero, though. More than that, Weng Weng today is much more than just a movie star; he’s an inspiration to all of us that no matter what, we can always rise above our station.