Films
about Hawai`i are rare, and films in which Hawai`i-identified
characters bring aloha to the U.S. mainland are even more
rare. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967),
a happy mixed-race couple met and dated in Hawai`i, and then
flies to San Francisco to receive approval for their proposed
marriage, which came in the same year when the Supreme Court
struck down the remaining antimiscegenation laws in the Southern
states. In the Disney TV film Johnny Tsunami,
a teenage surfer’s father, Pete Kapaha`ala (played by Yuji
Okumoto), uproots the family for a career move from the North
Shore of O`ahu to Skyline Academy, a snowy prep school town
in Vermont. Pete is particularly pleased that in Vermont his
son Johnny (played by Brandon Baker) will be away from the
influence of his father and his son’s grandfather Johnny Tsunami
(played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), a surfing champ. Directed
by Steve Boyum, the story shows personal transformations of
nearly all the characters as a result of the move, with aloha
winning out. Before leaving Hawai`i, Johnny Tsunami assures
his grandson that there will always be a place for him in
his home. Unlike his experience in Hawai`i, however, Johnny
encounters prejudice on the basis of class and race, which
complicates his ability to get along with his fellow students.
Instead of skiing with the preppies, called "Skys," his familiarity
with surfboarding attracts him to snowboarding, a sport played
by public school kids, called "Urchins," in the Vermont town
where he is living. Skys look down on Urchins, and only Skys
ski in one part of the mountain, while Urchins are restricted
to an inferior part of the mountain for snowboarding. Johnny
learns snowboarding from Sam (played by Lee Thompson Young),
an African American newcomer to the town, and Johnny decides
not to ski with the Skys. But Johnny has problems of adjustment,
and Sam’s father is suddenly informed of orders to be reassigned
by the military to a post in Iceland, so the two secretly
hop on a military plane for Honolulu. After some long-missed
surfing, Johnny Tsunami talks the two boys into returning
to Vermont. Bret (played by Zach Bostrom), one of the Skys
who wants his girlfriend Emily (played by Kirsten Storms)
to stay away from Johnny, is rude to Johnny and initiates
some scuffles, but Johnny refuses to be provoked into being
confrontational, true to his Hawaiian heritage. Ultimately,
Johnny challenges Brett to see who will come down the mountain
first, one on skis, the other on a snowboard, and a condition
of the victory is that snowboarders are free to use any of
the slopes formerly reserved for skiers. After Johnny wins,
Emily shows new respect for Johnny, and his father Pete realizes
that he has been too strict with his son and disrespectful
of his own father, Johnny Tsunami. Johnny decides to stay
in Vermont, having brought about a new environment of mutual
respect through nonconfrontational conflict resolution. Hawai`i
filmviewers will notice some anachronisms, such as the casting
of Pete by a light-skinned non-Hawaiian with an LA accent
(whose Hawaiian name is not spelled with the required ` mark
between the double "a"s). The story, written by Ann Knapp
and Doug Sloan, appears to be the pilot of a TV series, but
alas not much is expected of the film in Burbank after a week
on the Disney Channel. Prospects of bringing aloha to end
the obsessive class and race prejudice within the rest of
the United States will await yet another excellent script.
MH
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