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A moving and fascinating story about a topic seldom discussed when it involves heterosexual women, much less homosexual men. The story is told by the 73-year-old Walter Dempsey Jr after he watches a story on the news about "Comfort Women," Filipino women who were forced into prostitution to serve the Japanese occupying soldiers. The news account brings back Walter's nightmares of his own war experience imprisoned as a "Comfort Gay," and he decides he must get his story out as well. He talks to a reporter and flashes back from his current "Golden Gays House" den mother status, to the adolescent "Walterina," the beautiful as boy-or-girl cross dressing teen who gets bullied by his brother and raped by his brother's best friend because of his effeminate nature.
His brother's death gives him his first taste of freedom from oppression, and starlet-obsessed Walterina takes on the movie star name "Markova" and joins a group of other drag queens. Before long, the group gets in trouble with members of the occupying Japanese forces who think the "girls" are girls. When the drag queens are exposed as men, they're thrown into confinement and thus begin enduring the horrific abuses which haunt the modern day Walter. While the teen Walter suffered at the hands of his abusive brother, and the somewhat older Walter suffers at the hands of merciless Japanese soldiers, most of the others in his story are quite tolerant of Walter's open and flamboyant nature, and this leads to hopefulness. This is particularly surprising giving the time (World War II) and place (conservative Philippines).
When liberation comes in the form of American forces, Walter is free once again, for a brief moment, to be open. Members of his drag group begin dating some of the American soldiers, this time with full disclosure. We soon see a Walter who is comfortable enough in his own skin to flirt with straight men who don't seem to mind at the attention. These elements all add to the intriguing nature of the overall film, as does the "flaming" personalities and camp humour among the gay friends that seemingly crosses eras, cultures and continents. Most importantly, the unstoppable need to "be true to oneself" shines through in virtually everything that Walter/Walterina/Markova does right up to the most satisfying and beautiful ending. His intensely personal story traces the scars imprinted on a country struggling to come to terms with its past and a man struggling to be completely true to himself.
The film is based on the life of Walter Dempster, Jr., a gay transvestite performer with the stage name Walterina Markova. Ródolfo Quizon ("Dolphy") portrays the older, narrating Markova/Walter. The young Markova is played by Dolphy's son Jeffrey Quizon, and Dolphy's elder son Eric Quizon plays Markova as a young adult, thus explaining how the film succeeds in convincingly crossing the time periods with character of different ages who nonetheless look remarkably similar to one another.
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