Wushu world champ na-challenge sa ‘Bagani’

AT the helm of ABS-CBN’s upcoming fantaserye Bagani, alongside Richard Arellano, is former Wushu World Champion Lester Pimentel.

Direk Lester, as he is fondly called by his young cast, is already accomplished at such a young age. Aside from winning top awards in the World Wushu Championships (1995), SEA Wushu Championships (1996) and SEA Games (2005), he became the country’s coach for the National Team and became part of the development of Wushu training in various schools around the country. Fast forward to 2018.

Come March, he is part of one of the most anticipated series starring Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil. The gargantuan task of delivering a material that is familiar yet new to the Filipino audience was challenge accepted for the director whose credits also include the concluding La Luna Sangre, and directing action choreography for ABS-CBN shows such as Imortal, Palos, Panday, Pedro Penduko and some episodes of Wansapanataym.

But by far, Bagani was his biggest challenge. “When the concept was presented to me last 2016, my thoughts at that time was, ‘We don’t have the available talents and actors’ skills set to mount such a huge project.’

“But ABS-CBN and Star Creatives allowed me to start from scratch and train our actors and talents to produce skill sets to make Bagani a reality. It was a long process, two years and counting, but it was super worth it. Sana suportahan nila (the audience).’”

Multi-faceted that he is, while doing Bagani, he is doing an arduous task with the continuous operations of his Wangfu chain of restaurants which just opened branches in Ayala Cloverleaf, Vertis North and Ayala 30th.

“While there is an emerging passion for directing action materials, food is still one of my first loves. With the expansion of Wangfu, I, together with Richard (Yap) and our partners are looking forward to opening more branches in the coming months and years.”