Let's Dance Bon-Odori in Hawaii
     
Director: Ryuchi Takamori
Year: 1964
Rating: 7.0
Aka - Yume No Hawaii de Bon Odori

A sentimental, soft-hearted and sweet film that brings the Beach Party films to mind as well as the Let's Put on a Show films of Rooney and Garland. But in a Japanese setting with memories of WWII still causing pain. It has a bunch of songs and very affecting performances from the young cast - and one from a great. It has its drama but in a film like this, you know there will be happy endings and smiles all around. The audience would want their money back if it didn't. And one more song to send them on their way. Shot in sparkling color.




Natsuo (Kazuo Funaki) has just graduated from high school and is working at any job he can get in order to save enough money to go to Hawaii. Not to see the scenery but to visit his grandfather who he has never seen. The grandfather moved to Hawaii at a young age and built a farming business and had a son who eloped with a woman to Japan. The son was killed in the war and the grandfather disowned his daughter-in-law. Natsuo wants to reconcile them. His mother owns one of those small hole-in-the-wall bars that dot Tokyo. Miyoko enters the story when she almost runs Natsuo over and causes him to lose his job. She is played by the incredibly adorable Chiyoko Honma who quickly worms her way into your heart.



A friend of hers from Hawaii comes to visit and brings her grandfather with her. He has come to see if his daughter-in-law who lived in Hiroshima is still alive. He wants to reconcile with her. Natsuo guides him around Tokyo and the old man comes to have high regard for Natsuo. Beat, beat, beat. I give you three beats to guess that of course the old man is Natsuo's grandfather. Happy ending so quickly. Well no because the mother and the grandfather have a bitter fight in which the old man blames her for the death of his son. He goes back to Hawaii. It is up to Natsuo with the help of all his buddies to go to the island and fix it up. How? By putting on a Bon Festival which the old man has cherished memories of from his youth. It is a mix of dancing, singing and drumming. Bon Odori has a history going back 600 years. It has to do with welcoming the spirits of your dead ancestors and people dance in a circle around a tower where the music is coming from. It is kind of cool.



The grandfather is played by the great Chishû Ryû who began his career in 1928 and is most famous for appearing in 52 of Ozu's films. His last film was in 1992 in a Tora-san movie. He was in over 30 Tora-san films. As the stiff-necked stubborn old man, he is great. In the film also and performing two songs is Columbia Rose, a popular singer back then. I was in the right mood for this - no action, no sex, no violence - just an old-fashioned story of family and friendships.