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alexanderreyes
Reviews
Hawaii Five-O: The Reunion (1970)
Dammmmn! This was good!!!!
This had one plot twist after the other. Went far and beyond the usual. Perhaps the best episode I've seen from Seasons 1-3. Recognized some great actors from the Twilight Zone episodes in here. Both of them were superb as former war prisoners dealing with the return of the Japanese war criminal responsible for wrecking their lives. And I'm glad a man of Asian descent actually played the Japanese prison leader! He came off as innocent and sweet when he had to making us think "Is he really who they're claiming him to be?" but twisted his person around to be maniacal and vicious at the end. I really thought the dude was innocent until he bopped Chin Ho! The ending was gripping and emotional with one of the former prisoners refusing to exact revenge with gun in hand. Again, his acting was killer.
Hawaii Five-O: To Hell with Babe Ruth (1969)
I love Five-O but man this episode sucked!!!
This episode was wayyy hard to watch. The only part of this episode that peaked interest in me was the opening scenes which led to clues the killer was a ninja, since this episode was made way before the 80's ninja craze. (I love Ninja movies by the way) Other than that, the events which led to the plot were vague, the teleplay was sloppy despite Nagata's references to literature and haiku's (since he was Japanese after all). I know there weren't a whole lot of well known Asian actors back then (damn there's not many today either), but having white people playing Japanese or Asian folks with bad make up jobs and a sprayed on tan was laughable. Lenard's portrayal of Nagata didn't come off as crazy. He just seemed ridiculous. There was, however, a cool sword vs. sai demo in the early part of the show that was well played between a Caucasion swordsman and a an Asian instructor (why couldn't they get him to play the lead villain? Did he seem too Asian?) and for that I gave this 1 star episode an extra star to make it a two.