The King of Havana (2015) [+18 Sex Scene] [Spanish]

The King of Havana (Spanish: El rey de La Habana) is a 2015 Spanish-Dominican drama film directed by Agustí Villaronga which adapts Pedro Juan Gutiérrez‘s dirty realist novel El rey de La Habana. It stars Maykol David Tortolo, Yordanka Ariosa and Héctor Medina. It is set in the Cuban capital during the Special Period.

joint Spain-Dominican Republic co-production, the film was produced by Pandora Cinema, Tusitala, AIE El Rey de La Habana and Esencia Films. Filming began on 16 April 2015 in the Dominican Republic and it had already wrapped by 4 May 2015.

Set in the Cuban capital during the Special Period, Reynaldo (‘Rey’), returns to his old home in the wake of his escape from a juvenile prison, and wanders around Old Havana, meeting with prostitutes Magda and Yunisleidi.

Guy Lodge of Variety deemed the film to be “an unabashedly torrid urban melodrama that will enrapture or repel viewers — or, quite possibly, both — with its upfront, up-in-your-face excess”.

Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter assessed the film to be “a two-hour immersion in poverty, squalor, sex, violence, prostitution and death”, summing up as bottom line: “an extravagantly raunchy wallow in sordid poverty”.

Lee Marshall of ScreenDaily considered that the film, guilty of using “shock tactics for effect”, “can’t help but leave a bad taste in the mouth at the end of its entertainingly sensationalist two-hour ride”.

Jordi Costa of El País, wrote about the film’s brutal story, in which “the small outbreaks of human warmth” “make the blunt and desperate outcome to have an outright annihilating effect.

Recently escaped from a reformatory, young Reinaldo tries to survive on the streets of Havana in the late ’90s — one of the worst decades for Cuban society. During his wanderings, he meets Magda and Yunisleidy, survivors like himself. In one or the other’s arms, he tries to escape the material and moral misery surrounding him to chase down love, passion, and tenderness.

• Genre: Drama
• Original Language: Spanish (Spain)
• Director: Agustí Villaronga
• Producer: Luisa Matienzo, Celines Toribio
• Writer: Agustí Villaronga
• Release Date (Streaming): Oct 1, 2016
• Runtime: 2h 5m
• Production Co: Filmax