Riccardo Bardellino, producer of “Poison: First Fall: Jack’s Lightning”, is sad but grateful. He has stated this to this newspaper, after the death of the legendary Dominican wrestler Jack Veneno, idol of his childhood and adolescence, when he attended the Eugenio María de Hostos park or the Color Vision amphitheater, channel 9, for the television program of wrestling.
“I also had some salamis and some Forty Malt, I was lucky, I can’t complain,” he explained on the radio show “The Morning Sun, when I advertised the film in 2018.
In that interview, he explained how the idea was born to create a trilogy of films that portrays the life of Rafael Sánchez, the champion’s real name, and whose first intention was to create a written biography. , so he went to the wrestler. house to conduct a series of interviews in 2010.
“I really went to his house to thank him for everything he had represented in my childhood and adolescence,” said Bardellino, who is a fan of the sport of “agility, courage, flips and men in the air”.
The producer had different intentions when designing this project. First pay tribute to the “only Dominican superhero”, do justice to a generation of artists who want to bring all the talent that exists in this country, save their own values, use our music … “And show ourselves what we can make a quality film that doesn’t necessarily have to be a comedy ”.
For this, the filmmaker and publicist Taba Blanchard, screenwriter, director and editor of the film, helped him, for whom it was a challenge to create a work that did justice to the dimension of the mythical figure of Jack Veneno, and on the other hand to to recreate the entire visual environment in which the character was developed.
“All of us in production had the burden of making a cinematic work that transcends time,” said Blanchard, who is fascinated by working on a historical film at the same time, because it is what he likes best, and a very commitment., for the visual fidelity it must have.
Therefore, for the realization of this first part of the life of the “World Champion Balls”, he remarked that a careful research was needed into what the Dominican was like in those years, his way of speaking, his dress, in short, to the the essence of those years, the second half of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s.
“Poison: First Fall: Jack’s Lightning” premiered in February 2018 and the second part of the trilogy was announced for 2020 at the time, but did not arrive. According to Blanchard, the two missing parts are being written, although there are no start dates for filming.
Musical fighter
Jack Veneno also inspired songwriters and arrangers. Papi Sanchez, for example, used him as the lead in his video for the meringue “Give Me Your Love”.
“Jack Poison’s Belt”, 1977Instead, it’s a typical merengue dedicated to the Dominican wrestler, recorded by Leonardo Figueroa, better known as El Negrito Figueroa.
This song tells everything this fighting hero means, from his journey through the earth to his arrival in heaven, and was used as a musical background in some places during his visits to the cities, with the wrestling board.
“El Hombrecito” is a CD with the song “Jack Veneno passed away” in 2009. As if it wanted to become a blues spinning on a military march, “El Hombrecito” brings this cityscape, typical of Santo Domingo with the “son of Doña. Tatica “as the central axis.
Marel Alemany has recorded “Dame lucha” in 2010. A love story, various TV characters or local music-making cameos and masks hiding the faces of beautiful girls is what this work delivers.
The story completes its greatness with the presence of the champion of the “ball of the world” who gives advice and waits, who could become his successor or in this case successor. And they love it too.
“The juidero”
Rita Indiana & Los Misterios: “El juidero” (2010) also paid tribute to him. “La Montra” enchanted with this video clip, in which even a model of Joaquín Balaguer’s car makes its figure: a Lincoln Continental.
Winks everywhere, from the art direction in the details to the plot of the same, with an essence of Dominicanity. The same thing that we sometimes want to ignore, but we can’t.
Jack Veneno, who died at dawn on Tuesday, was in charge of giving us courage, right in the middle of juye-juye.
Whitest Taino Alive ft VFRO: “Jack Veneno” (2017). The spoiled but spoiled terrace offers an apology to the man with the handle, contained in his musical production “Manda nudes”.
It is a song that exudes tigueraje, courage and burns the verb that if you make up a lot ‘they can get spark, spark, spark out of you’.
Not bad, bearing in mind that in different generations they strived to be like Jack, which is why they wanted to buy a Forty Malt in the houses, even though it tasted like rays. And no one, I mean no one in our generation, can deny that he didn’t throw himself on a bed while facing the accusing gaze of an adult.