Finding ‘Ohana Review

Hapa Mag - MARCH 10, 2021

By Nathan Liu

*THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS

It’s safe to say that we’re in something of a golden age of Asian American content. Right now, more movies, TV shows, and even podcasts written, directed by, and starring API creatives are getting green-lit and distributed on a large scale. And perhaps no company has been a greater champion of Asian American voices than Netflix. From movies like To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Always Be My Maybe, and Tigertail, to TV shows like Patriot Act, Never Have I Ever, and Master of None, Netflix has produced some of the best API content in recent years. And because the company has such a large audience, it’s helped normalize East and South Asian faces in mainstream entertainment. That’s all great, and they deserve a ton of credit for that, but that doesn’t mean they’re above making bad API content, and, unfortunately, their most recent film, Finding ‘Ohana, falls into that category.

The story of two Brooklyn siblings, Pili and Ioane, who discover a treasure map on a trip to Oahu, and decide to find the gold to save their grandpa from foreclosure, the movie is basically a Hawaiian remake of The Goonies. And that’s not just my opinion. The filmmakers have openly acknowledged The Goonies’ influence, even going so far as to cast one of the original Goonies, Jonathan Ke Huy Quan, in a supporting role. When I say this movie wears its influences on its sleeve, boy do I mean it. The cave sets look the same, someone says “Hey, you guys,” and there are story beats that are identical between the two films — like falling down a hole into a chamber with a skeleton, or needing to move through a waterfall in order to escape. It got to the point where I started wondering why Richard Donner, Chris Columbus, and Steven Spielberg — the director, writer, and producer of Goonies — didn’t sue for plagiarism, or why the makers of this film didn’t just go ahead and do a straight up remake. Because, apart from the change of setting and ending, it’s the same movie. But you know what? Being derivative isn’t inherently a bad thing. As a writer, I firmly believe that there are only a set number of narratives in existence, and that it’s how you tell a story that makes it unique. And it’s in that respect — putting its own stamp on the premise of kids looking for treasure to stop foreclosure — that Finding ‘Ohana unfortunately fails.

The biggest problem is that the characters just aren’t that likable, and for a story like this, being able to empathize with them is key. We need to care if their grandpa loses his home, if they’re forced to relocate from New York to Hawaii, and, just as crucially, if they live or die when they’re trapped in the caves. Unfortunately, the filmmakers chose to make Pili and Ioane snotty, petulant, belligerent little brats. Virtually every second that they’re on screen together, they’re either yelling, arguing with each other, or whining — even if it doesn’t make sense. Like, at the beginning of the movie, Pili, the sister, is upset that she has to spend time in gorgeous, tropical Hawaii instead of summer camp in the Catskills. Then later on, she learns that, to help save her grandpa from foreclosure, her mother, played by Kelly Hu, may have to sell their apartment in Green Point and move them out to Oahu. Pili reacts like this is the worst thing in the world. All I could think to myself while watching this was, “Are you kidding me? Hawaii is paradise on Earth. It’s the place everyone dreams of visiting on vacation. I’d do anything to live there! Why would you possibly view this as a bad thing?” Sure, you might miss your friends, but we never really see Pili or Ioane’s lives in New York beforehand, which is another big problem.

We’re thrust into this narrative without being given any real chance to know these characters, and are just expected to care. Both siblings talk about their lives in New York — Ioane goes by “I” because people can’t pronounce his name, he has to take care of his sister because his mother is always out working, their dad is dead — but we never see any of that. We’re told in dialogue, but not until about halfway through the movie. It honestly would have been so much better if there had been one more scene in Brooklyn apart from the scavenger hunt cold open, a brief scene where we watch Pili come home, where Ioane is making dinner, and says “Mom’s working late again.” Pili could complain, and Ioane could say something like, “Hey, cut her some slack. Now that dad’s dead, she’s gotta do everything herself.” Pili could shrug off his comment, call her friends, and eagerly discuss their plans for summer camp. Then, out of nowhere, her mom comes in and tells them that they can’t go to camp this year. Pili could ask why, and then we’d cut to Hawaii. This might not be a great scene, but it would at least establish the dynamics earlier on, and show us a moment of their day-to-day lives. We don’t get anything like that in the movie. The characters and, by extension, our investment in the narrative, suffer as a result.

Something else this film struggles with is tone. See, it’s a kids movie, but there’s a ton of weird, sexually charged jokes in it. Like, for some reason, they’re always talking about nipples. What nipples feel like, how big they are, what color they are, etc. And they always refer to them as “nips,” which, by the way, is a racial slur for Japanese people. So in addition to feeling weird listening to little kids constantly talk about nipples, I also felt uncomfortable at hearing a racial slur over and over again. And if you think the creepy factor stops there, think again. There’s a moment where Pili and Ioane look at a photo of their mom when she was young, and Pili says, “You think this was when she stopped shaving?” Why would you possibly include that? What kid would say that about their parent? It’s not just the sex jokes. The dialogue these kids have doesn’t sound like actual words that kids would say. In one scene, for instance, Pili and her friend Casper are walking through the valley where Jurassic Park and Lost were shot, and Casper goes into a long diatribe about how unsatisfying Lost’s ending was. He says that the series was “incomprehensibly plotted,” and that “after dedicating six years of time and emotional investment, people just don’t want to admit that the show was bad.” First of all, what 12 year old uses phrases like “incomprehensibly plotted” and “emotional investment?” Also, Lost ended over a decade ago. So why would a 12 year old be so worked up over a series that ended before they were even old enough to watch TV? Finally, including a jab at other artists in your own work is bad for multiple reasons. First, it just comes off as snide and mean-spirited. Second, and more importantly, it announces to the audience that you think your work is better than the thing you’re criticizing. And if it’s not, then you look like a jackass. Just look at M Night Shyamalan’s Lady In The Water, where he wrote himself as an author whose works would save the world and included a snobby film critic who gets killed by a monster, as if to say, “My films are better than you, stupid film critics.” That message just comes off as juvenile and totally detached from reality when you actually see the train wreck that is Lady In The Water. And that’s exactly what happens here. I may not like how Lost ended, but I think it has much better acting, dialogue, cinematography and character development than Finding ‘Ohana. So when I hear characters in the latter talking down to Lost, I just roll my eyes, and think, “Really, movie? You wanna go there? Cuz you’re not gonna like how it ends.”

What is perhaps the worst example of the film’s tonal whiplash is the ending. See, for 90% of the movie, it seems to be taking place in the real world. People get hurt. They make mistakes. The general rules of physics and chemistry are followed. But suddenly, in the last ten minutes, it becomes a ghost movie. Yeah, out of nowhere, spirit warriors who, apparently, have been guarding the cave where the treasure is hidden, show up and demand they return what was taken. And, for some reason, Pili and Ioane’s dead father is one of these spirit warriors. Why? How? Don’t ask me, because the movie doesn’t know. This whole sequence isn’t just bad because it comes out of nowhere and clashes with the (relatively) realistic first half, but because it renders the whole story pointless. The entire objective of the film is to get the treasure so they can save their grandpa from foreclosure. After everything they go through, not only do they not get the treasure, but they just find another way of saving the house... which means that they could have done so the whole time, and the entire treasure hunt was pointless. Ugh.

Now, in fairness to this movie, it isn’t entirely without merit. The scavenger hunt cold open in Brooklyn is fast-paced, well-shot, and competently edited. It’s nice to see a kids adventure, starring two API actors. I like the fact that the Hawaiian characters speak Pidgin English with subtitles. I also like that they address the fact that the two leads are ethnically-ambiguous Hapas. There’s a throwaway joke where Pili explains how she learned Spanish because she was tired of people asking if she was Puerto Rican. Getting confused for other races is a real thing Hapa people experience. My father, just as an example, is frequently mistaken for Mexican, as opposed to Chinese. And Kelly Hu is always great. But, overall, the film is too derivative, it’s characters are too annoying, the ending comes out of nowhere, and it can’t seem to decide what tone it wants to have. If you want to see a movie about kids looking for treasure, watch the original Goonies. Yes, it’s got some outdated jokes, like all the cracks they make about the one kid’s weight, but, overall, it’s funnier, more exciting, the characters are more likable — and it’s more tonally consistent. It’s a classic for a reason. Finding ‘Ohana is not, and hopefully I’ve convinced you as to why.