90's kids may remember fond memories of watching Magic Temple, a 1996 film by the formidable duo of Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes. Created for that year's MMFF, the film is a remarkable work of the imagination, considering that in the nineties Filipino fantasy films were rare. This year, the ABS-CBN restoration people have restored and remastered the film, and it looks great.
The film's narrative takes us to the mystical world of Samadhi, where three young boys - Jubal, Sambag and Omar - are tasked to restore balance to the world and defeat the entity responsible. Both Samadhi and what is presumably our world is a mix of Eastern and Western mythology, mixing western notions of the underworld with Chinese fantasy martial arts and mysticism.
The film is obviously catered for younger audiences; constant narration from Sambag helps us along the story and keeps the lines between good and evil clear. The story is a simple iteration of the hero's journey (of course, with its own signature flair.) A number of insert songs keep things interesting all throughout.
Despite this, the film does carry a bit of added symbolism to it. Each of the three main characters represents one of the major island groups of the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Each is characterized by their own character traits. Some characterizations, like that of Omar, are a bit stereotypical, and one wonders if characterizing Jubal (who represents Luzon) as the truth-seeing person of authority (since the seat of power is Luzon after all) brings a whole new level of discourse to the whole thing. In any case, the film's message seems to be that all three need to cooperate to succeed - a call for unity of sorts.
Without the nostalgic filter, one can spot a few cracks - the pacing tends to get weird near the end, and the story seems too streamlined, building up a rich magical world, yet showing us very little of it. Nevertheless, the film shows a surprising amount of technical polish compared to similar works in the region; while not exactly up to snuff with its Hollywood counterparts, the practical effects and CGI in Magic Temple is comparable to some of the effects utilized by Hong Kong movies and Japanese tokusatsu productions of that time period.
The restoration job is very impressive in parts. Certain sequences look so good that they could pass for a film released today. However, other scenes shot in darkness are a bit spotty quality wise. Overall good work for a 20 year old film.
If you want to relive a bit of your childhood (and see an MMFF film that's legit for kids,) I wholeheartedly recommend Magic Temple. This film (as well as a number of other restored films) will be showing at Power Plant Mall in Rockwell from December 7-14 as part of ABS-CBN's REELive the Classics event.
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