Mom, can we have Super Mario Bros.?
Released in 1995 as an official entry in the Metro Manila Film Festival, Magic Kombat stars Filipino comedians Smokey Manaloto and Eric Fructuoso as Mario and Luigi, respectively, as they become accidentally transported into a video game and are forced to fight their way out of the simulation.Magic Kombat is later followed by Computer Kombat (1997), which follows a similar premise and is also directed by Junn Cabreira.
A link to the full movie can be found here
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The film provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Rio.
- As the Good Book Says...: Mario relates the biblical Adam and Eve story to Rio.
- Cheat Code: Diana keys in cheat codes in order to equip Mario and Luigi with weapons.
- David Versus Goliath: Taken a literal turn when Mario flings one of the gems they earned onto a giant (who was fused from two of their enemies). The giant gets knocked down and turns into a dwarf; hilarity then ensues.
- Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: A young woman by the end of the film is a dead ringer for Rio.
- Expy: Considering how this directly lifts scenarios and stuff out of popular video games of the era, such thinly-veiled imitations are inevitable, most especially the characters of Mario and Luigi.
- Invisible to Normals: Rio, who can be seen by Mario, Luigi and Diana but not by everyone else, due to her being a video game character; she can however will herself into existence in front of others when the need arises though.
- Kamehame Hadoken: Mario and Luigi use this especially during the Street Fighter-esque airstrip stage.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: Which accounts for why all of the computers at the school campus ended up malfunctioning, as well as Rio showing up in the real world.
- Little People Are Surreal: Played for Laughs when a giant fused from two enemies whom Mario and Luigi defeated turns into a little person.
- Mark of Shame: Vega gets tied to a fence and is forced to wear a placard by Mario and Luigi.
- Pac Man Fever: Basically how the film's producers saw the medium of video games, especially considering the popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System (sold in the Philippines in its original Japanese-market Family Computer incarnation) and fighting games such as Street Fighter II at the time.
- Shout-Out: The film is basically the Filipinos' love letter to video games popular with the youths of the era, albeit without the blessing of the video game studios whose works were incorporated in it.
- Slapstick: As is typical with Filipino comedies of the era.
- Stock Sound Effects: With 8- and 16-bit sound effects used in spades, and a smattering of copyright infringement while we're at it, as said sound effects are directly lifted from Nintendo games and those of other developers as if the film's sound designer ran a Famicom (or more likely a clone thereof), connected it to a tape recorder and called it a day.
- Trapped in Another World: Rio comes to life in the real world while Mario and Luigi get stuck in Rio's world.
- Win to Exit: Mario and Luigi get sucked into a video game and are forced to fight their way out of it; Inverted with Rio who somehow ended up being transported into the real world.
