Mexico City.- Mexican actor Manolo Cardona makes his directorial debut with the Paramount+ thriller “One to die”, in which a group of strangers is forced to follow the rules of a bloody game.
The film, currently available on the streaming service, stars Maribel Verdú, Adriana Paz, Carla Adell, Juan Carlos Remolina, Dagoberto Gama and Cardona himself, with a special performance by Fernando Becerril. “Unfortunately, the last film by our dearest Fernando Becerril,” Cardona said of the actor who died in February of this year.
Cardona had previously acted in series such as “Now and Then”, “Who Killed Sara?”, “Rubirosa” and “Narcos”, as well as the films “Amalgama” and “Rosario Tijeras”.
In “One to Die”, Cardona plays Lieutenant Simón Acosta who appears in a gloomy mansion on the seashore with a stewardess (Paz), a doctor (Gama), a retiree (Becerril), a businessman (Remolina), the wife of the businessman (Verdú) and the daughter of the couple (Adell). Except for the businessman’s family, they don’t know each other.
Soon after, a voice begins to speak to them from a speaker and makes them follow three rules to survive: one of them has to die, the chosen one has to agree to his own death and no one can offer himself. They have one hour to decide who dies or they all die.
The story of “One to die for” is based on an idea by Frank Ariza, who wrote the script together with Gavo Amiel and Julieta Steinberg. The film is produced, among others, by Juancho, Cardona’s brother.
Cardona said he was an admirer of mystery books and films.
“I’m a big fan of Asian thrillers, especially Korean ones. I have known that cinematography for more than 20 years, ”she said. “There is a director that I really like who is Park Chan-wook,” he added about the filmmaker of “Boksuneun naui geot” (“The Name of Revenge”), “Oldeuboi” (“Oldboy: Five Days of Revenge”) and “Chinjeolhan geumjassi” (“Lady Revenge”).
The confinement, at first inexplicable in “One to die”, is also reminiscent of films such as “El ángel exterminador” by Luis Buñuel and the classic “12 Angry Men” (“12 fighting men”). For Cardona, placing his characters in confinement was “almost a theatrical way of developing the story.”
Shortly after starting the tape, it becomes clear that whoever took them to this mansion is willing to make them die. The clock is ticking and they must decide who will die next.
The mansion in which the story takes place, in which the Ecuadorian Suly Castillo also acts, is the product of Cardona’s imagination.
“It is this house that we made, recreated and invented, this incredible mansion that is prepared precisely for this macabre game,” he said. “I wanted to create this universe, something that had never been seen before.”
Cardona said that as an actor and director he continues to learn day by day, but he tried to put into practice what he had learned from his previous experiences as an interpreter when making his film, this time in the role of director.
“I always like to have harmonic sets,” he said. “I tried to spoil the talent a lot in that sense, to give them their space, their time, to make respect for the actor and actress prevail, for those times that are needed before a scene and that they are not running.”
