Movie Review – “The Farewell”
It’s Not All That . . Wayne Muromoto Commentary, Special to The Hawai‘i Herald Positive Asian American representation in mainstream American pop culture is so rare that I want to give any effort encouragement. “The Farewell,” a movie about a Chinese American woman reconnecting with her family in China, has all the ingredients for an....
Theatre Review – Bravo! For “Da Beer Can Hat”
Darrell H.Y. Lum’s Play at Kumu Kahua Theatre is Both Funny and Sensitive Karleen Chinen Commentary In our lives, somewhere . . . sometime . . . we’ve all known someone like “Bobo.” Someone mentally handicapped, but sweet and pure-hearted. And maybe even a little tricky-smart in his or her own way. It was that....
“Soup of Life” Film Screening
WHO/WHAT: Palolo Hongwanji Mission screens the documentary film, “Soup of Life,” about 88-year-old Yoshiko Tatsumi, who prepares special soups for her bedridden father. After he passes, Tatsumi begins serving wisdom with her soups. “Soup...
“Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of Hawaii” Screening
WHO/WHAT: AARP Hawai‘i will host a free screening of “Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of Hawai‘i,” produced by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i. While the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans on the U.S....
Review – A Powerful “Allegiance”
Jodie Chiemi Ching Commentary Because I am a writer for The Hawai‘i Herald and an Okinawan performing artist, people might think that I’m the type of mother who forces my two sons, 14-year-old Gavin and 12-year-old Cameron, to attend or participate in Japanese and Okinawan cultural activities. Actually, I rarely do. I try to encourage....
“And Then They Came for Us” Screening
WHO/WHAT: The screening of “And Then They Came for Us,” a documentary film featuring actor George Takei and other internees and a panel on the present-day relevance of the World War II internment are...
“August at Akiko’s” at Consolidated Kahala
WHO/WHAT: The made-in-Hawai‘i indie film, which debuted at the 2018 Hawaii International Film Festival, tells the story of musician/actor Alex Zhang Hungtai’s search for his grandparent’s home on the Big Island and the unlikely...
Film Review – “Forever Chinatown”
Alan Suemori Special to The Hawai‘i Herald Memory is a curious companion. It is an internal movie that captures the past, not as it was, but as we wish it to be. It is our own Hollywood production. It is a fickle river that is part fact and part fiction as it flows toward eternity.....
Theatre – Myles Fukunaga Case Dramatized at Paliku Theatre
Kevin Kawamoto Special to The Hawai‘i Herald Ninety years after the execution hanging of Myles Fukunaga, a young Japanese American man who killed the son of a Hawaiian Trust Company executive, the story continues to resonate among Hawai‘i residents who have learned about the case and questioned the judicial system’s rush to judgment of an....
Movie Review – “Crazy Rich Asians”
Insight Into a World Many Have Never Seen and Few Would Recognize Alan Suemori Commentary Special to The Hawai‘i Herald In the 1930s, as the world roiled in the depths of the Great Depression, Hollywood rolled out a banquet of classic romantic comedies that is still revered and beloved today. Armed with whiplash dialogue, glamorous....