August 8, 2023 • 37 mins
In 1893 a Hawaiian cowboy and his wife refuse to allow their family to be torn apart sparking an armed clash with brutal western authorities and making Ko’olau and Pi’ilani heroes for the ages.
I've got Jason Scott Lee and Lindsay Watson, who portray the two main characters in the must-watch movie, "The Wind & The Reckoning", with me on the podcast today. I'm so excited for you all to join us! ~ Delilah
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, friends, welcome back to Love Someone. I'm Delilah with
you. You've heard of the dog days of summer, Well, that's
what we're currently experiencing. It's when our summer days are
the hottest and the muggiest, and sometimes it can be
difficult to get oneself into a productive state of mind.
(00:30):
I think these days are best spent lollying about, drinking
iced tea or lemonade. Ooh, homemade lemonade. Mmm mmm mmm,
listening to some music, sticking our noses into a good book,
or after a long day at work, or chasing the
(00:52):
kids around, watching a great movie to unwind in the evening.
And I've got recommendation for all of it. And on
this episode of Love Someone, we're going to talk about
a movie I stumbled across and absolutely fell in love with.
(01:12):
It's a docudrama. It tells a very true, very sad,
and very compelling story. It's heartbreaking but so empowering. It
tells the story of a group of native Hawaiians who
resisted the government mandated exile during a leprosy outbreak in
(01:34):
the late eighteen hundreds. The movie is called The Wind
and the Reckoning. The Hawaiian kingdom had been overthrown by
a Western power. Just as an outbreak of leprosy brought
by that western power engulfs the tropical paradise, the new
(01:56):
provisional government orders all native Jaian suspected of having the
foreign disease of leprosy banished permanently. They can never come
back to their family or friends to a remote colony
on the island of Molokai, the Island of the Living Grave.
(02:17):
But after a local cowboy and his young son contract
the dreaded disease, they refuse to allow their family to
be separated. Their mother wanted to come with them. It
sparked an armed clash with the brutal White Island authorities
and makes the cowboy and his wife heroes for all ages.
(02:43):
These are real life characters. It's a true story. The
story is based on historical events as told through the
memoirs of Piolani herself, who survived. I've got the two
main characters with me on this podcast today. Jason Scott
portrays the father. He is perhaps best known for his
(03:05):
role as Bruce Lee in the martial arts film Dragon,
The Bruce Lee Story and as Mowgli in the nineteen
ninety four live action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's classic The
Jungle Book. He also stars in the new hit Disney
Plus series Doogie Kamea Loha MD, and played antagonist Bory
(03:31):
Kahan in Disney's live action remake of Moulan. Jason was
raised in Hawaii, where he currently lives, and is of
both Hawaiian and Chinese descent. Lindsay Watson, who portrays Piolani,
is a Hawaiian native best known for her breakout role
in the twenty twenty Netflix feature film Finding o'hanna. Maui
(03:56):
born and raised, she is a Kamea Maya School's graduate
who is quickly becoming a well known actor both in
Hawaii and abroad. Her next roles include the horror film
Terrestrial and the independent documentary One Million Dollar. I can't
wait for you to meet Jason and Lindsey. I will
introduce them right after I spend a moment telling you
(04:19):
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With me today on Love Someone are two fabulous actors,
(05:25):
Jason Scott Lee and Lindsay Watson. Both of you are
native Hawaiians and we're in an amazing film. How did
you to Jason and Lindsay? I'll start with you, Jason,
how did you discover this story? How did you get
involved with it? How was it birth? Because it was
(05:45):
filmed during the COVID shutdown right, Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, it was the idea of filming about a
pandemic during a pandemic exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That was set in the late eighteen hundreds in Hawaii
with the onslaught of prosy or Henson's disease. And the
director David Cunningham, who I've been friends with for many,
many years, he contacted me and it was it was
it was a work in progress. I mean we talked
about it for many years before it even came to fruition,
(06:15):
But it was always on this back burner.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Who had the dream originally? Like who woke up one
day and said this story Pilani's story, the whole story,
but Lindsay, your character, it was her writings, her memoir
that the whole movie is based on, who said this
needs to be a movie.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, John Fusco, the writer, brought the idea to David
Cunningham's attention at first, and it wasn't until very recently
that Elani's memoirs were translated into English, so now it
was it was relatable where you know, they really get
in under of this account that took place, and that
(06:57):
that kind of propelled the movie to kind of be
expanded and go forward.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And lindsay, how did you get involved? How did they
find their way to you or how did you find
your way to the wind in the reckoning?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, I definitely came on to the story later than Jason,
but I had worked with some of our awesome producers
we have on the Win of the Reckoning. We had
worked on a film prior and they jumped on the
project and I was super blessed that as soon as
Eloni came to mind, they thought of me. So a
lot of them started to reach out to me. And
(07:29):
when I heard this story was the first time I
got this script in hand, which is something we love
to talk about. I was born and raised in Hawaii,
I went to all Hawaiian school and yet I never
heard of this story before this script landed in my hand.
So when I read this script, it was such a
shocking moment for me being a Hawaiian, going what is
this story? Because to me, I break this story down
(07:51):
in like the most simple terms. This was a moment
in one of our hardest times in our history where
the Hawaiian stood up and fought back for what we
believe in and in a way we were victorious. So
to me, it wasn't shocking that this story was kind
of pulled out of our history and not showed to us.
You know, they wouldn't want Hawaians to know this was
a story that you know, empowered us to fight back
(08:14):
in this hard time. So to me, I wanted to
make sure we brought the story to life so that
we as Wines look back at our ancestors and then
moving forward in the future for our next generations. I
want them to see this story, see this moment, because
we're all taught this time of the overthrow and leprosy
and it's all negative. And to me, this is this moment,
this small little portion of this dark time where Pete,
(08:37):
Lani and Colo we stood up as Hawaiians for what
we believe in our culture, our len, our family, our faith,
everything like that. So it was an easy yes for
me jumping into this project.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And you jumped into it beautifully. Oh my word, thank you.
The emotions that you two, Jason and Lindsay portrayed for
each other and for your family. Oh oh my gosh.
When you said when Piolani said, no, you will not
(09:07):
tear us apart.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Mm hmm. Yeah. To me, that was one of like
the most powerful scenes for me as a character. When
we were on set. It was a tough one. You know.
I've also talked about this as an actor. The build
up for me and the preparation. I'm not a wife
in real life. I'm not a mother in real life.
So for me to connect to that portion of p
(09:31):
e Lanni, that wife, that mother, it took some preparation
for me. But once I got in there and I
realized not only that level of being a wife and
a mother, but understanding that your husband and your son
are going to die and you're going to lose them
and they're going to be gone for me. When that
you know, to me, that was pe Lanny's whole world,
(09:51):
that was her whole world. So yeah, see, it makes
me cry like talking about it alone, because it was
such a heavy moment when you get into that character,
into that mind of what she felt like and the
power she It was very easy for her to find
her power because her husband and her son were her power.
So to see them getting torn away and ripped away
from her, she wasn't going to stand by easily. That's
(10:12):
not the type of Hawaiian woman she was, and that.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
She was having no part of that. Yeah, A big
part of her commitment to her husband and her son
were based obviously on just emotional love that we have
for her family, but she also believed in the covenant,
the covenant that she had made a promise to God
to be one with her family.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, her faith was a big portion, you know, and
reading her memoir and like understanding that that's kind of
all I really had to pull from to build the
character of Pete Lunny And it was such a stressor
for me because she's a real, true and powerful figure
in our history. So bringing her to life, being the
face of what Pete Lenny is going to be was
something I didn't take lightly. And reading through those were
(10:59):
like the things that really stood out to me. Her family,
her culture, but her faith and her faith is what
really pulled her family together. That's what pushed them forward
in her darkest times. I think that's almost what push
her through knowing her husband and her son were dying
from this deadly disease that they've watched friends and family
and everyone around them die from, and that is what
(11:21):
connected her to Kolao and saying that, above anything else,
God's word is what was most important. So if we
were brought together under God's word, under God's name in marriage,
who are you to tear us apart? Who are you
to say that you can take my husband, you can
take my son, even though we made this vow under
God's name. So that to her was the end all
(11:44):
of like, you're not I don't care who you are.
You're not going to stop us, and you're not going
to pull our family in this vow that we made.
And to me, that just showed her commitment and her
loyalty to her family, like I said, and to her culture,
to her faith, everything that centered her.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Jason, you have been in a lot of amazing roles. Lindsey,
you kind of you're a breakout. You just hit that
a couple of years ago. You're a baby. But Jason,
you've you've been Bruce Lee. I mean, you've been some
pretty amazing characters that you've embodied. How did this role
(12:19):
as a historical character, How was that different for you
than the other roles that you've been in.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, I think you know, I did the Dragon that
Bruce Lee started when I was twenty six, and you
know that was like monumental, that was historical. He's an
historical figure in my eyes and in many many people
such an icon and that was daunting because he was
a known entity.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
And you know what people do. I'll tell you what
we do. We watch you and that, and then we
go back and we watched Bruce Lee and then we
watch you, and we flip back and forth to see
and you nail it. You nailed it. You can't really
do that with this character since he died, you know,
one hundred years ago plus.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, and and and and he's buried in Seattle, you
know where where you're from. So I'm sure he had
a big presidence there. But so, you know, looking at
a lot of sort of biopics, I looked at it
that way, like this was something this this way, win
and the recording was going to be something that it's historical,
it has to be somewhat accurate. People have to connect
(13:23):
with the characters. And that put a lot of pressure
on Lindsay and my shoulders in the sense of being
non Hawaiian speaking actors and having to relearn and learn.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
A lot of the language.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So that that was and in a short amount of time,
we had like two to three weeks, and it.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Was just a crunch time. The budget was very small.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
It was just this this episode where we had to
like really like focus and really and I feel that
it was the most difficult task in my career as
what I can remember with dialogue because.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It's all in it's all in the Hawaiian language with subtitles.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yes, they call it Alelo Hawaii, and it's the native
Hawaiian language, and in this language. We had to learn
it for what the period was and when this was
late eighteen hundreds, they don't speak so.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
There's no pigeon language.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
This was right. Yeah, a lot of the English that
was brought in was brought by missionaries who had sort
of a mid Atlantic almost English, you know, twang to them,
and so you know, with that, it was just kind
of very edgy the whole way, you know, just trying
(14:40):
to make sure that our as we say, our kupuna,
our elders would understand that we made our a huge
attempt to get it accurate and to be authentic and
that that rings true, you know. With with with the
responses that we've been getting and you know, seeing that, wow,
you know, people are really happy with our performance. People
(15:02):
are happy that the Hawaii language is alive and being heard.
And it's as they say, in indigenous cultures, they are
heart languages and beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
It's like music. It's like listening to music. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, And there's that, you know, that old world poetry
that comes with that kind of language, which is all
but lost in our everyday modern tongue. So you know,
those are all kind of like great pedestals and you know,
thresholds to stand on. We're so proud of that, and
we hope that other Olo Hawaii films, Hawaii language films
(15:40):
get produced because I think there's something there, and there's
so many stories behind it. This is just one of
like thousands.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
One of the things that I loved about the story,
there's the love story between your two characters and the
love story between the whole family with your son. But
I also and I don't know how much of it
is accurate, lindsay, maybe you can share the characters that
were the other castaways, the other stowaways, the other runaways,
(16:09):
the others that said no, we're we're not getting in
the boat, we are not getting in the boat. How
much of that is, how much of those relationships were
created for the film, and how much we're in Polani's
memoirs because those were precious.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, a lot of those were created for the film,
but you know, a lot of it taken from historical context,
but obviously John our writer. He did an incredible job.
Like we again, we didn't have a lot of time,
and this film was originally way bigger and very Hollywood,
and with us filming in the middle of COVID, we
(16:47):
really kind of had to bring it down and we
cut a lot of characters and a lot of roles,
and it brought us down to that small amount of
people that we had. But I think that's what made
it even more precious, Like you said, these really sweet
connections between these few Hawaiians that again they were standing
up for what we believed in.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
How many people were on set you were on fifty acres, right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
God, not many? So cast wise, what did we have?
There was actually only one day where we were all
on set together. Most of the time we didn't film together.
There were a lot of moments because of COVID, there
were all these different levels of safety during that time.
It was like red, yellow, green levels. So we were
(17:40):
really were as normally on a set, were able to
kind of hang out, have a lot more time to
develop our characters, watch behind the scenes, like there was
none of it this time. You know, we were fully
masked at kN ninety five masks. If anyone was in
the red zone. It was like gloves, face mask, medical gown,
the whole thing. So it's pretty impressive, I feel like
for us that there's such this deep connection and this
(18:03):
really quiet connection. We also talk about that idea of
because the script was stripped down, you know, because of COVID,
it really brought out the heart of the story. You know,
there weren't all these big explosions and all of this
craziness going back and forth. It was this quiet stillness
of that time, you know, of the eighteen hundreds where
there wasn't all these modern day distractions and you really
(18:26):
got to, you know, enjoy those connections between the Hawaiians
where they got to sit there and although there was
a lot of heartbreak and heartache, you had those sweet
moments of relief in between all of that to see
who they are and as Hawaiians, our heart of how
much aloha we still have even in the darkenss of times,
that although Pete Lenny was on the run trying to
(18:48):
protect her husband and her son, we still made the
time and brought in these Hawaiians and because that's just
who we are, we always, you know, till this day,
as Hawaiians we still bring in friends, family, no matter
what they're they're part of our ohana. So I'm glad
you picked up those little moments because I feel like
those are loss sometimes in this movie because they're so
(19:09):
focused on Planicolo, they missed those moments of they we
weren't the only ones.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And the characters that were with you in the filming.
There's so there's it's it's mind boggling when you think
about how in real life, in history, people were trying
to survive a pandemic, a deadly disease, and they wanted
to do it in community. They wanted to do it
in community. The woman who your character was based on
(19:38):
wasn't opposed to going to the island of what do
they call it, the Island of the.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Grave living dead?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, they weren't saying no, we're going to stay here there.
She was just saying, I am going to go with
my husband and my son. You're not you cannot tear
us apart. We want to be in the community of
our family. And then you were filming it during a pandemic.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yep. Yeah, it was a cool situation for us to
kind of have that. You know, there was a lot
for us as actors to prepare, you know, bringing to
life these real characters, the language, getting into the mindset
of what it's like in the eighteen hundred. But the
biggest one was living through a pandemic. And the one
(20:20):
positive I can say about COVID was it gave me
as an actor, a real life experience of what it
would have really felt like, you know. Whereas that would
have been some character building for my mindset of like
what's it like to live through a global pandemic, I
was like, I know exactly what it's like. I could
pull directly from that. So it was I say the
one silver lining of COVID was bringing that awareness to
(20:42):
this film because I think again that really played across
for us that we weren't faking that, we weren't trying
to create that in our mind. We know what that
felt like to be pulled apart, ripped apart, and that
fear that comes with that.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Jason Lindsay said she didn't have the natural experience to
draw on of being a white life or a mother.
Do you have the natural experience to draw in of
being a dad?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, I'm a father of three and a husband for
a number of years now, and yeah, you know there's
there's something that I mean, in a good situation, it's
just the best.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You know, It's like and I was, I was harken
back to the idea that that families are the root
of society.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
I've also been a.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Gardener for many, many years now, and I always relate
raising a family to gardening. It's always that little branch
when that when that kid is growing up in that
little branch that goes astraight, you go, Okay, I better
prove that for and make sure.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
This this plant grows straight.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
And just that kind of nurturing, that kind of every
day tending weeding and weeding and weeding and.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Waiting and waiting, and.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Right, that's family.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I mean you always, cause every day it's like you've
got to be aware of something that's going to pop up.
And it's always something. You know, everything it's gonna be.
So I brought that to the role and just just
the idea, just the idea that, wow, you have this
somewhat terminal illness and you know it's gonna come, and
(22:13):
it's gonna come sooner than you think, and how are
you gonna deal with that? So I always throughout the filming,
I always felt this underlying you know, morbidity, kind of
like this thing that was just weighing cold ou down
and just like, yeah, I can wake up and I
can be spirited in whatever fashion I need to be.
(22:34):
But I know it's like there's that underlying thing that's
kind of weighing you down, and there's always that That's
the thing that kind of propelled me to keep Like
when I look at my own family and going wow,
what if that was the case.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
You know that that's the whole thing about acting is
there's always the what if, what if? What if? And
it propels you.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It creates your imagination and sometimes not in the best places.
But I think that's a sacrifices kind of we make
as actors. And you know, you go to that place
and you go, wow, it's like what would I be thinking?
You know, would I be sitting still? Would I be
like neurotic? Or And I think in character, not only
(23:17):
personal character, but projecting the the film character. You know,
when you come from an honest place, you can never
go wrong.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I loved your character how you are so in love
with your wife and yet so protective of Pielani you
did not want her to be infected with your illness.
So it was this dichotomy where you're trying to hold
your family together while you can't even hold your family.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Yeah, yeah, and even you know.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
And and then seeing Ilani with her son kalem money
and and Kalaimundu is not afraid to you know, help
his mom. But being an old they're understanding like that
could lead, you know, something bad.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
There was always that adult supervision that was always like.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Hands off, and she she was like having no part
of that either. She's like, no, you're my man. And
if you're going we're going down as a family, I
don't care. Just get your butt over here and hug me.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yeah. This epic love story where we never hold hands.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, not.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
One.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Well, it's such a beautiful movie.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Yeah, that's I think to me, that's the heart of
this whole film of not only telling this wonderful story,
but I'm really excited for the educational side that's come
from it. And it's already been happening. We have a
lot of schools wanting to reach out that want to
play this film. So not only for the stories and
our historical people, they want to hear the language. They
(24:53):
want this language locked in film forever. That's where I
always say my two worlds colliding. I'm a Hawaiian who
loves her culture and loves or home, but I'm also
a filmmaker and actress, and I love that these two
worlds have collided and have been able to lock our
language in film forever, because you know, film is forever,
and even if we have these moments which we've had
in our history where our language starts to die off,
(25:15):
we always have this there to help bring it back,
you know, recording languages. There's a lot of indigenous cultures
who have lost their language because it was always passed
down verbally. It was never we didn't have technology like
we have nowadays to go and make sure to lock
our cultures in for generations to come, because maybe there's
one generation who is not passionate about it, but the
(25:36):
next generation is. So to give them that opportunity. That's
what films like this are all about, so that our
Hawaiian culture can live forever. And we want to, as
Jason said, open the doors for other cultures, people like
your children, that want to have this. How many indigenous
cultures out there who don't get these opportunities. So we're
here kind of like stop in the ground kicking some
(25:58):
doors open as Hawaiians, and we're saying, not only us,
We're going to kick this open for everyone to come
through because these stories it's so cool to see. You know,
we've taken this film to Hawaii obviously, and there's obviously
such a great response there, but we've taken it to
Indianapolis where there's people out there in Boston and Alaska
who are so connected to the film, and it's so
interesting to see that you don't have to be Hawaiian
(26:19):
to understand the heart of this story. You know, this
is a universal theme and it's something a lot of
indigenous cultures have experienced of land getting taken away, culture language.
So it's it's cool to be able to share this
with the world and kind of spark that fire with
other people within their cultures to want to tell their
stories as well.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Watch it. Now people will start sharing their stories. We'll
start like respecting and understanding each other. That's dangerous a theme?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
What the thought?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
What a concept?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah? Exactly what was it?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Like Jason when they debuted it, Because they debuted in
Hawaii first, right, and then it's it's won some really
cool awards. But what was that like to be in
the audience watching people your people, people whose grandparents are
great grandparents were live during that time. What was that
(27:14):
like to to feel that energy? I mean that must
have just been the highest high in the world to
feel all that heart energy and and I mean I
felt it and I'm native nothing.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Now that you know the the the important part in
our culture is the kigy, the kids, children, and the
coupuna so and and you know that that's kind of
like who we are raised to to respect and have
concern for. And you know that some of the faces
of the elders that came out, they were just like
(27:50):
it's about time.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Was there a big amen at the end of it?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Like oh it was like halle and and and you know,
not dry eye in.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
The in the audience and just just a great and
we had with this big open air. One of the
screenings was at the Bishop Museum, which houses all this
Hawaiiana relics and and and historical things. And it was
on this lawn of this kind of campus museum, and
there were thousands there and it was an outdoor screening
(28:21):
and es they were They were characters there who stood
up after the film and started doing chanting and uh,
you know, these chants of approval and just really uh
ferocious activists, you know for the independence of Hawaii and
and knowing the history of how the country was was
(28:43):
you know, overturned, and oh they were so patriotic with
with with the film and that was like really something
to see.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
You know, you don't get that kind of response.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I wish you could bottle that energy. Yeah, that was joy,
That energy, that passion must have been overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
It was crazy for us, for sure, it was. I
mean Jason kind of mentioned it, and I don't know
if I've never really told a lot of people this.
Where we were presenting the movie at the Bishop Museum,
it was really cool for me because my grandfather was
a popular Hawaiian boxer, so he actually has his boxing
gloves in that Bishop Museum right inside. So it was
(29:22):
such a cool moment for me to be standing outside
getting to present this movie while I knew his relics
were right inside the museum. So it was like a
cool full circle moment for me because I never really
got to meet him. He passed away when I was
very young, so it was cool. My mother it was
her father and she was there, so it was very
It was a heart wrenching moment for us to.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Know what was your grandfather's name.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Stan Harrington? He was Stan the man was his name?
I know, I know. I was like, realized that was
you were saying it. I was like, I've never really
told people this that As we were there, it was
so cool for my family were like, Tuesday in the
store is his cape and his boxing gloves, and here
we are now getting to present this. So I knew
(30:06):
he was watching over us that day for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Jason and Lindsay are being so generous with their time today.
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I still find it amazing, lindsay what you said that
you are native Hawaiian, you were raised there and you
went to an amazing school system for native Hawaiians. That
(31:17):
you went through all that, all those years and never
heard this powerful story of a woman king. Have you
seen the movie The Woman King. There's a great thing
I've not seen it yet, also based on kind of
based on a true story, not nearly as historically correct,
but just this powerful woman who to look at you,
(31:41):
to look at her physically, was not like you would
picture the woman King, and yet her love, her love
for her, her son and her husband, and her faith
made her invincible. She's like, oh no, I am taking
you out if it's the last thing I do.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Amna nay what we call them, yep, that is she
is one of the many. And it's so cool to
know that her story will now be told. The people
will know, you know, Pilani will be a household name.
Quotla will be a household name for many Hawaiians to
come because again, many of us, and that's just not me.
I have a lot of friends who went to the
same school, a lot of friends who grew up in
(32:22):
Hawaii along and we all asked each other, have you
heard this story? Nope? Have you heard this story? Nope?
And it was a very small percentage of people who
actually have heard the story. So now knowing that this
story has made its way into so many Hawaiian households
and across the world, now it's cool to know that
stories like this, they're just going to keep coming, incoming, incoming,
(32:42):
and there's not going to be Hawaiian stories that Hawaiians
don't know about it anymore. Again, the big thing that
I want people to walk away with is knowledge of
our language. That was a huge part for Jason and
I to take on, being Hawaiians born and raised in Hawaii.
Our language, as we been told in the past, it's
almost been gone at many many points in our history.
(33:04):
For us to take on this challenge of two weeks
to learn our language that we have been aware of
that we've been around, but we never really got an
opportunity like this that forced us to become fluent. And
because of that, we made an awesome accomplishment of being
able to secure our language in film forever, and I
(33:27):
really want that to be a moment for not only Hawaiians,
but a big one for Hawaiians that I want them
to have that fire to relearn our language, to bring
our languages back, because I don't ever want us to
get to that point again where we almost lose our language.
There's such a small percentage of Hawaiians who are fluent.
So I've had many people come up to me who said,
you know what, after watching this movie, I want to
(33:49):
not only learn our language, I want to learn more
about our culture, about our history. You know, it gets
lost in our modern day. And I've had other people
from other backgrounds come and say, I want to now
learn our language. You know, it's a thing that's possible,
even though in our crazy day to day it seems
so hard to learn a whole other language, and you know,
especially from our history. So that's for me. I just
(34:10):
want a lot of people to look and appreciate our culture,
appreciate this place you go and vacation and hang out
on the beach, to know where our history comes from,
who we are as people, our language, and learn that
respect when you go to any other indigenous place, any
other cultural place. So that's my two cents.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
And picking up on her heels.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
One of the big things I love about the movie
and I wish people take away is that idea that
there's a relationship. There's relationships within the film that I
think depict this kind of like acceptance of race. Like
there's a character of the Sinclair who plays the rancher
(34:57):
out of respect we say uncle, and you know there's
that there's that harmony that two people from completely two
different cultures can blend. But you know that there's there's that
respects as saying, and it's not about the color of
your skin, It's about your character and the respect you
(35:19):
have for each other. And that to me was like
I love those scenes and that it's that those things,
those little scenes that I love between the Native Hawaiian
and the Caucasian where they're dynamics, there's dynamics in those relationships.
Those are those are the things that that you know,
I some of the parts of the movie that I
(35:40):
just I just love.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
I think if you too take your passion for Indigenous
stories and languages, you'll be working hard for the rest
of your lives.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
That's what I'm afraid of.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, Well, thank you for spending time with us on
love song. God bless you and I appreciate your talent,
appreciate your efforts, appreciate your beautiful hearts.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Thank you, Thank you guys, well guy.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
The Wind and the Reckoning, which was made primarily in
the Hawaiian language with English subtitles, was one of the
first Hawaiian language films with an international distribution. It had
its world premiere at the Boston Film Festival on September
twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. It won Best Film and
(36:30):
has since picked up several more honors and prestigious awards.
It's being shown in select theaters nationwide, with more venues
added each day, and can also be viewed on several
streaming platforms. Go to Wind and Reckoning dot com wind
Andreconing dot com to check for local view options, to
(36:51):
watch the trailer, and to find out more about this beautiful,
beautiful film. If you have the opportunity to watch it
on the big screen, take advantage of the air conditioning
and theater popcorn and do so. But if it's not
showing in your hometown, then definitely go pop your own
popcorn and set yourself up for an incredibly compelling movie
(37:13):
experience and stream it. I hope the heat of the
summer is something that you welcome, and if it's been
exceptionally harsh, I hope that you've got someplace cool and
comforting to escape to. I hope that you're healthy and well,
and that if you are experiencing any trials, you've got
love and support to see you through to the other side.
(37:34):
I've discovered that reaching out to help others in need
is one of the best ways to heal ourselves, just
one of the many reasons. I'll use this opportunity to
encourage you to take a cue from the dog days
of summer to slow down and love someone
Hi, friends, welcome back to Love Someone. I'm Delilah with
you. You've heard of the dog days of summer, Well, that's
what we're currently experiencing. It's when our summer days are
the hottest and the muggiest, and sometimes it can be
difficult to get oneself into a productive state of mind.
(00:30):
I think these days are best spent lollying about, drinking
iced tea or lemonade. Ooh, homemade lemonade. Mmm mmm mmm,
listening to some music, sticking our noses into a good book,
or after a long day at work, or chasing the
(00:52):
kids around, watching a great movie to unwind in the evening.
And I've got recommendation for all of it. And on
this episode of Love Someone, we're going to talk about
a movie I stumbled across and absolutely fell in love with.
(01:12):
It's a docudrama. It tells a very true, very sad,
and very compelling story. It's heartbreaking but so empowering. It
tells the story of a group of native Hawaiians who
resisted the government mandated exile during a leprosy outbreak in
(01:34):
the late eighteen hundreds. The movie is called The Wind
and the Reckoning. The Hawaiian kingdom had been overthrown by
a Western power. Just as an outbreak of leprosy brought
by that western power engulfs the tropical paradise, the new
(01:56):
provisional government orders all native Jaian suspected of having the
foreign disease of leprosy banished permanently. They can never come
back to their family or friends to a remote colony
on the island of Molokai, the Island of the Living Grave.
(02:17):
But after a local cowboy and his young son contract
the dreaded disease, they refuse to allow their family to
be separated. Their mother wanted to come with them. It
sparked an armed clash with the brutal White Island authorities
and makes the cowboy and his wife heroes for all ages.
(02:43):
These are real life characters. It's a true story. The
story is based on historical events as told through the
memoirs of Piolani herself, who survived. I've got the two
main characters with me on this podcast today. Jason Scott
portrays the father. He is perhaps best known for his
(03:05):
role as Bruce Lee in the martial arts film Dragon,
The Bruce Lee Story and as Mowgli in the nineteen
ninety four live action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's classic The
Jungle Book. He also stars in the new hit Disney
Plus series Doogie Kamea Loha MD, and played antagonist Bory
(03:31):
Kahan in Disney's live action remake of Moulan. Jason was
raised in Hawaii, where he currently lives, and is of
both Hawaiian and Chinese descent. Lindsay Watson, who portrays Piolani,
is a Hawaiian native best known for her breakout role
in the twenty twenty Netflix feature film Finding o'hanna. Maui
(03:56):
born and raised, she is a Kamea Maya School's graduate
who is quickly becoming a well known actor both in
Hawaii and abroad. Her next roles include the horror film
Terrestrial and the independent documentary One Million Dollar. I can't
wait for you to meet Jason and Lindsey. I will
introduce them right after I spend a moment telling you
(04:19):
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With me today on Love Someone are two fabulous actors,
(05:25):
Jason Scott Lee and Lindsay Watson. Both of you are
native Hawaiians and we're in an amazing film. How did
you to Jason and Lindsay? I'll start with you, Jason,
how did you discover this story? How did you get
involved with it? How was it birth? Because it was
(05:45):
filmed during the COVID shutdown right, Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, it was the idea of filming about a
pandemic during a pandemic exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That was set in the late eighteen hundreds in Hawaii
with the onslaught of prosy or Henson's disease. And the
director David Cunningham, who I've been friends with for many,
many years, he contacted me and it was it was
it was a work in progress. I mean we talked
about it for many years before it even came to fruition,
(06:15):
But it was always on this back burner.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Who had the dream originally? Like who woke up one
day and said this story Pilani's story, the whole story,
but Lindsay, your character, it was her writings, her memoir
that the whole movie is based on, who said this
needs to be a movie.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, John Fusco, the writer, brought the idea to David
Cunningham's attention at first, and it wasn't until very recently
that Elani's memoirs were translated into English, so now it
was it was relatable where you know, they really get
in under of this account that took place, and that
(06:57):
that kind of propelled the movie to kind of be
expanded and go forward.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And lindsay, how did you get involved? How did they
find their way to you or how did you find
your way to the wind in the reckoning?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, I definitely came on to the story later than Jason,
but I had worked with some of our awesome producers
we have on the Win of the Reckoning. We had
worked on a film prior and they jumped on the
project and I was super blessed that as soon as
Eloni came to mind, they thought of me. So a
lot of them started to reach out to me. And
(07:29):
when I heard this story was the first time I
got this script in hand, which is something we love
to talk about. I was born and raised in Hawaii,
I went to all Hawaiian school and yet I never
heard of this story before this script landed in my hand.
So when I read this script, it was such a
shocking moment for me being a Hawaiian, going what is
this story? Because to me, I break this story down
(07:51):
in like the most simple terms. This was a moment
in one of our hardest times in our history where
the Hawaiian stood up and fought back for what we
believe in and in a way we were victorious. So
to me, it wasn't shocking that this story was kind
of pulled out of our history and not showed to us.
You know, they wouldn't want Hawaians to know this was
a story that you know, empowered us to fight back
(08:14):
in this hard time. So to me, I wanted to
make sure we brought the story to life so that
we as Wines look back at our ancestors and then
moving forward in the future for our next generations. I
want them to see this story, see this moment, because
we're all taught this time of the overthrow and leprosy
and it's all negative. And to me, this is this moment,
this small little portion of this dark time where Pete,
(08:37):
Lani and Colo we stood up as Hawaiians for what
we believe in our culture, our len, our family, our faith,
everything like that. So it was an easy yes for
me jumping into this project.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And you jumped into it beautifully. Oh my word, thank you.
The emotions that you two, Jason and Lindsay portrayed for
each other and for your family. Oh oh my gosh.
When you said when Piolani said, no, you will not
(09:07):
tear us apart.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Mm hmm. Yeah. To me, that was one of like
the most powerful scenes for me as a character. When
we were on set. It was a tough one. You know.
I've also talked about this as an actor. The build
up for me and the preparation. I'm not a wife
in real life. I'm not a mother in real life.
So for me to connect to that portion of p
(09:31):
e Lanni, that wife, that mother, it took some preparation
for me. But once I got in there and I
realized not only that level of being a wife and
a mother, but understanding that your husband and your son
are going to die and you're going to lose them
and they're going to be gone for me. When that
you know, to me, that was pe Lanny's whole world,
(09:51):
that was her whole world. So yeah, see, it makes
me cry like talking about it alone, because it was
such a heavy moment when you get into that character,
into that mind of what she felt like and the
power she It was very easy for her to find
her power because her husband and her son were her power.
So to see them getting torn away and ripped away
from her, she wasn't going to stand by easily. That's
(10:12):
not the type of Hawaiian woman she was, and that.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
She was having no part of that. Yeah, A big
part of her commitment to her husband and her son
were based obviously on just emotional love that we have
for her family, but she also believed in the covenant,
the covenant that she had made a promise to God
to be one with her family.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, her faith was a big portion, you know, and
reading her memoir and like understanding that that's kind of
all I really had to pull from to build the
character of Pete Lunny And it was such a stressor
for me because she's a real, true and powerful figure
in our history. So bringing her to life, being the
face of what Pete Lenny is going to be was
something I didn't take lightly. And reading through those were
(10:59):
like the things that really stood out to me. Her family,
her culture, but her faith and her faith is what
really pulled her family together. That's what pushed them forward
in her darkest times. I think that's almost what push
her through knowing her husband and her son were dying
from this deadly disease that they've watched friends and family
and everyone around them die from, and that is what
(11:21):
connected her to Kolao and saying that, above anything else,
God's word is what was most important. So if we
were brought together under God's word, under God's name in marriage,
who are you to tear us apart? Who are you
to say that you can take my husband, you can
take my son, even though we made this vow under
God's name. So that to her was the end all
(11:44):
of like, you're not I don't care who you are.
You're not going to stop us, and you're not going
to pull our family in this vow that we made.
And to me, that just showed her commitment and her
loyalty to her family, like I said, and to her culture,
to her faith, everything that centered her.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Jason, you have been in a lot of amazing roles. Lindsey,
you kind of you're a breakout. You just hit that
a couple of years ago. You're a baby. But Jason,
you've you've been Bruce Lee. I mean, you've been some
pretty amazing characters that you've embodied. How did this role
(12:19):
as a historical character, How was that different for you
than the other roles that you've been in.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, I think you know, I did the Dragon that
Bruce Lee started when I was twenty six, and you
know that was like monumental, that was historical. He's an
historical figure in my eyes and in many many people
such an icon and that was daunting because he was
a known entity.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
And you know what people do. I'll tell you what
we do. We watch you and that, and then we
go back and we watched Bruce Lee and then we
watch you, and we flip back and forth to see
and you nail it. You nailed it. You can't really
do that with this character since he died, you know,
one hundred years ago plus.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, and and and and he's buried in Seattle, you
know where where you're from. So I'm sure he had
a big presidence there. But so, you know, looking at
a lot of sort of biopics, I looked at it
that way, like this was something this this way, win
and the recording was going to be something that it's historical,
it has to be somewhat accurate. People have to connect
(13:23):
with the characters. And that put a lot of pressure
on Lindsay and my shoulders in the sense of being
non Hawaiian speaking actors and having to relearn and learn.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
A lot of the language.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So that that was and in a short amount of time,
we had like two to three weeks, and it.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Was just a crunch time. The budget was very small.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
It was just this this episode where we had to
like really like focus and really and I feel that
it was the most difficult task in my career as
what I can remember with dialogue because.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It's all in it's all in the Hawaiian language with subtitles.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yes, they call it Alelo Hawaii, and it's the native
Hawaiian language, and in this language. We had to learn
it for what the period was and when this was
late eighteen hundreds, they don't speak so.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
There's no pigeon language.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
This was right. Yeah, a lot of the English that
was brought in was brought by missionaries who had sort
of a mid Atlantic almost English, you know, twang to them,
and so you know, with that, it was just kind
of very edgy the whole way, you know, just trying
(14:40):
to make sure that our as we say, our kupuna,
our elders would understand that we made our a huge
attempt to get it accurate and to be authentic and
that that rings true, you know. With with with the
responses that we've been getting and you know, seeing that, wow,
you know, people are really happy with our performance. People
(15:02):
are happy that the Hawaii language is alive and being heard.
And it's as they say, in indigenous cultures, they are
heart languages and beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
It's like music. It's like listening to music. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, And there's that, you know, that old world poetry
that comes with that kind of language, which is all
but lost in our everyday modern tongue. So you know,
those are all kind of like great pedestals and you know,
thresholds to stand on. We're so proud of that, and
we hope that other Olo Hawaii films, Hawaii language films
(15:40):
get produced because I think there's something there, and there's
so many stories behind it. This is just one of
like thousands.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
One of the things that I loved about the story,
there's the love story between your two characters and the
love story between the whole family with your son. But
I also and I don't know how much of it
is accurate, lindsay, maybe you can share the characters that
were the other castaways, the other stowaways, the other runaways,
(16:09):
the others that said no, we're we're not getting in
the boat, we are not getting in the boat. How
much of that is, how much of those relationships were
created for the film, and how much we're in Polani's
memoirs because those were precious.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, a lot of those were created for the film,
but you know, a lot of it taken from historical context,
but obviously John our writer. He did an incredible job.
Like we again, we didn't have a lot of time,
and this film was originally way bigger and very Hollywood,
and with us filming in the middle of COVID, we
(16:47):
really kind of had to bring it down and we
cut a lot of characters and a lot of roles,
and it brought us down to that small amount of
people that we had. But I think that's what made
it even more precious, Like you said, these really sweet
connections between these few Hawaiians that again they were standing
up for what we believed in.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
How many people were on set you were on fifty acres, right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
God, not many? So cast wise, what did we have?
There was actually only one day where we were all
on set together. Most of the time we didn't film together.
There were a lot of moments because of COVID, there
were all these different levels of safety during that time.
It was like red, yellow, green levels. So we were
(17:40):
really were as normally on a set, were able to
kind of hang out, have a lot more time to
develop our characters, watch behind the scenes, like there was
none of it this time. You know, we were fully
masked at kN ninety five masks. If anyone was in
the red zone. It was like gloves, face mask, medical gown,
the whole thing. So it's pretty impressive, I feel like
for us that there's such this deep connection and this
(18:03):
really quiet connection. We also talk about that idea of
because the script was stripped down, you know, because of COVID,
it really brought out the heart of the story. You know,
there weren't all these big explosions and all of this
craziness going back and forth. It was this quiet stillness
of that time, you know, of the eighteen hundreds where
there wasn't all these modern day distractions and you really
(18:26):
got to, you know, enjoy those connections between the Hawaiians
where they got to sit there and although there was
a lot of heartbreak and heartache, you had those sweet
moments of relief in between all of that to see
who they are and as Hawaiians, our heart of how
much aloha we still have even in the darkenss of times,
that although Pete Lenny was on the run trying to
(18:48):
protect her husband and her son, we still made the
time and brought in these Hawaiians and because that's just
who we are, we always, you know, till this day,
as Hawaiians we still bring in friends, family, no matter
what they're they're part of our ohana. So I'm glad
you picked up those little moments because I feel like
those are loss sometimes in this movie because they're so
(19:09):
focused on Planicolo, they missed those moments of they we
weren't the only ones.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And the characters that were with you in the filming.
There's so there's it's it's mind boggling when you think
about how in real life, in history, people were trying
to survive a pandemic, a deadly disease, and they wanted
to do it in community. They wanted to do it
in community. The woman who your character was based on
(19:38):
wasn't opposed to going to the island of what do
they call it, the Island of the.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Grave living dead?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, they weren't saying no, we're going to stay here there.
She was just saying, I am going to go with
my husband and my son. You're not you cannot tear
us apart. We want to be in the community of
our family. And then you were filming it during a pandemic.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yep. Yeah, it was a cool situation for us to
kind of have that. You know, there was a lot
for us as actors to prepare, you know, bringing to
life these real characters, the language, getting into the mindset
of what it's like in the eighteen hundred. But the
biggest one was living through a pandemic. And the one
(20:20):
positive I can say about COVID was it gave me
as an actor, a real life experience of what it
would have really felt like, you know. Whereas that would
have been some character building for my mindset of like
what's it like to live through a global pandemic, I
was like, I know exactly what it's like. I could
pull directly from that. So it was I say the
one silver lining of COVID was bringing that awareness to
(20:42):
this film because I think again that really played across
for us that we weren't faking that, we weren't trying
to create that in our mind. We know what that
felt like to be pulled apart, ripped apart, and that
fear that comes with that.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Jason Lindsay said she didn't have the natural experience to
draw on of being a white life or a mother.
Do you have the natural experience to draw in of
being a dad?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, I'm a father of three and a husband for
a number of years now, and yeah, you know there's
there's something that I mean, in a good situation, it's
just the best.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You know, It's like and I was, I was harken
back to the idea that that families are the root
of society.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
I've also been a.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Gardener for many, many years now, and I always relate
raising a family to gardening. It's always that little branch
when that when that kid is growing up in that
little branch that goes astraight, you go, Okay, I better
prove that for and make sure.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
This this plant grows straight.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
And just that kind of nurturing, that kind of every
day tending weeding and weeding and weeding and.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Waiting and waiting, and.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Right, that's family.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I mean you always, cause every day it's like you've
got to be aware of something that's going to pop up.
And it's always something. You know, everything it's gonna be.
So I brought that to the role and just just
the idea, just the idea that, wow, you have this
somewhat terminal illness and you know it's gonna come, and
(22:13):
it's gonna come sooner than you think, and how are
you gonna deal with that? So I always throughout the filming,
I always felt this underlying you know, morbidity, kind of
like this thing that was just weighing cold ou down
and just like, yeah, I can wake up and I
can be spirited in whatever fashion I need to be.
(22:34):
But I know it's like there's that underlying thing that's
kind of weighing you down, and there's always that That's
the thing that kind of propelled me to keep Like
when I look at my own family and going wow,
what if that was the case.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
You know that that's the whole thing about acting is
there's always the what if, what if? What if? And
it propels you.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It creates your imagination and sometimes not in the best places.
But I think that's a sacrifices kind of we make
as actors. And you know, you go to that place
and you go, wow, it's like what would I be thinking?
You know, would I be sitting still? Would I be
like neurotic? Or And I think in character, not only
(23:17):
personal character, but projecting the the film character. You know,
when you come from an honest place, you can never
go wrong.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I loved your character how you are so in love
with your wife and yet so protective of Pielani you
did not want her to be infected with your illness.
So it was this dichotomy where you're trying to hold
your family together while you can't even hold your family.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Yeah, yeah, and even you know.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
And and then seeing Ilani with her son kalem money
and and Kalaimundu is not afraid to you know, help
his mom. But being an old they're understanding like that
could lead, you know, something bad.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
There was always that adult supervision that was always like.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Hands off, and she she was like having no part
of that either. She's like, no, you're my man. And
if you're going we're going down as a family, I
don't care. Just get your butt over here and hug me.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yeah. This epic love story where we never hold hands.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, not.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
One.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Well, it's such a beautiful movie.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Yeah, that's I think to me, that's the heart of
this whole film of not only telling this wonderful story,
but I'm really excited for the educational side that's come
from it. And it's already been happening. We have a
lot of schools wanting to reach out that want to
play this film. So not only for the stories and
our historical people, they want to hear the language. They
(24:53):
want this language locked in film forever. That's where I
always say my two worlds colliding. I'm a Hawaiian who
loves her culture and loves or home, but I'm also
a filmmaker and actress, and I love that these two
worlds have collided and have been able to lock our
language in film forever, because you know, film is forever,
and even if we have these moments which we've had
in our history where our language starts to die off,
(25:15):
we always have this there to help bring it back,
you know, recording languages. There's a lot of indigenous cultures
who have lost their language because it was always passed
down verbally. It was never we didn't have technology like
we have nowadays to go and make sure to lock
our cultures in for generations to come, because maybe there's
one generation who is not passionate about it, but the
(25:36):
next generation is. So to give them that opportunity. That's
what films like this are all about, so that our
Hawaiian culture can live forever. And we want to, as
Jason said, open the doors for other cultures, people like
your children, that want to have this. How many indigenous
cultures out there who don't get these opportunities. So we're
here kind of like stop in the ground kicking some
(25:58):
doors open as Hawaiians, and we're saying, not only us,
We're going to kick this open for everyone to come
through because these stories it's so cool to see. You know,
we've taken this film to Hawaii obviously, and there's obviously
such a great response there, but we've taken it to
Indianapolis where there's people out there in Boston and Alaska
who are so connected to the film, and it's so
interesting to see that you don't have to be Hawaiian
(26:19):
to understand the heart of this story. You know, this
is a universal theme and it's something a lot of
indigenous cultures have experienced of land getting taken away, culture language.
So it's it's cool to be able to share this
with the world and kind of spark that fire with
other people within their cultures to want to tell their
stories as well.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Watch it. Now people will start sharing their stories. We'll
start like respecting and understanding each other. That's dangerous a theme?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
What the thought?
Speaker 1 (26:49):
What a concept?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah? Exactly what was it?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Like Jason when they debuted it, Because they debuted in
Hawaii first, right, and then it's it's won some really
cool awards. But what was that like to be in
the audience watching people your people, people whose grandparents are
great grandparents were live during that time. What was that
(27:14):
like to to feel that energy? I mean that must
have just been the highest high in the world to
feel all that heart energy and and I mean I
felt it and I'm native nothing.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Now that you know the the the important part in
our culture is the kigy, the kids, children, and the
coupuna so and and you know that that's kind of
like who we are raised to to respect and have
concern for. And you know that some of the faces
of the elders that came out, they were just like
(27:50):
it's about time.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Was there a big amen at the end of it?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Like oh it was like halle and and and you know,
not dry eye in.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
The in the audience and just just a great and
we had with this big open air. One of the
screenings was at the Bishop Museum, which houses all this
Hawaiiana relics and and and historical things. And it was
on this lawn of this kind of campus museum, and
there were thousands there and it was an outdoor screening
(28:21):
and es they were They were characters there who stood
up after the film and started doing chanting and uh,
you know, these chants of approval and just really uh
ferocious activists, you know for the independence of Hawaii and
and knowing the history of how the country was was
(28:43):
you know, overturned, and oh they were so patriotic with
with with the film and that was like really something
to see.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
You know, you don't get that kind of response.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I wish you could bottle that energy. Yeah, that was joy,
That energy, that passion must have been overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
It was crazy for us, for sure, it was. I
mean Jason kind of mentioned it, and I don't know
if I've never really told a lot of people this.
Where we were presenting the movie at the Bishop Museum,
it was really cool for me because my grandfather was
a popular Hawaiian boxer, so he actually has his boxing
gloves in that Bishop Museum right inside. So it was
(29:22):
such a cool moment for me to be standing outside
getting to present this movie while I knew his relics
were right inside the museum. So it was like a
cool full circle moment for me because I never really
got to meet him. He passed away when I was
very young, so it was cool. My mother it was
her father and she was there, so it was very
It was a heart wrenching moment for us to.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Know what was your grandfather's name.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Stan Harrington? He was Stan the man was his name?
I know, I know. I was like, realized that was
you were saying it. I was like, I've never really
told people this that As we were there, it was
so cool for my family were like, Tuesday in the
store is his cape and his boxing gloves, and here
we are now getting to present this. So I knew
(30:06):
he was watching over us that day for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Jason and Lindsay are being so generous with their time today.
I want to get back to our conversation, but not
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(30:31):
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I still find it amazing, lindsay what you said that
you are native Hawaiian, you were raised there and you
went to an amazing school system for native Hawaiians. That
(31:17):
you went through all that, all those years and never
heard this powerful story of a woman king. Have you
seen the movie The Woman King. There's a great thing
I've not seen it yet, also based on kind of
based on a true story, not nearly as historically correct,
but just this powerful woman who to look at you,
(31:41):
to look at her physically, was not like you would
picture the woman King, and yet her love, her love
for her, her son and her husband, and her faith
made her invincible. She's like, oh no, I am taking
you out if it's the last thing I do.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Amna nay what we call them, yep, that is she
is one of the many. And it's so cool to
know that her story will now be told. The people
will know, you know, Pilani will be a household name.
Quotla will be a household name for many Hawaiians to
come because again, many of us, and that's just not me.
I have a lot of friends who went to the
same school, a lot of friends who grew up in
(32:22):
Hawaii along and we all asked each other, have you
heard this story? Nope? Have you heard this story? Nope?
And it was a very small percentage of people who
actually have heard the story. So now knowing that this
story has made its way into so many Hawaiian households
and across the world, now it's cool to know that
stories like this, they're just going to keep coming, incoming, incoming,
(32:42):
and there's not going to be Hawaiian stories that Hawaiians
don't know about it anymore. Again, the big thing that
I want people to walk away with is knowledge of
our language. That was a huge part for Jason and
I to take on, being Hawaiians born and raised in Hawaii.
Our language, as we been told in the past, it's
almost been gone at many many points in our history.
(33:04):
For us to take on this challenge of two weeks
to learn our language that we have been aware of
that we've been around, but we never really got an
opportunity like this that forced us to become fluent. And
because of that, we made an awesome accomplishment of being
able to secure our language in film forever, and I
(33:27):
really want that to be a moment for not only Hawaiians,
but a big one for Hawaiians that I want them
to have that fire to relearn our language, to bring
our languages back, because I don't ever want us to
get to that point again where we almost lose our language.
There's such a small percentage of Hawaiians who are fluent.
So I've had many people come up to me who said,
you know what, after watching this movie, I want to
(33:49):
not only learn our language, I want to learn more
about our culture, about our history. You know, it gets
lost in our modern day. And I've had other people
from other backgrounds come and say, I want to now
learn our language. You know, it's a thing that's possible,
even though in our crazy day to day it seems
so hard to learn a whole other language, and you know,
especially from our history. So that's for me. I just
(34:10):
want a lot of people to look and appreciate our culture,
appreciate this place you go and vacation and hang out
on the beach, to know where our history comes from,
who we are as people, our language, and learn that
respect when you go to any other indigenous place, any
other cultural place. So that's my two cents.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
And picking up on her heels.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
One of the big things I love about the movie
and I wish people take away is that idea that
there's a relationship. There's relationships within the film that I
think depict this kind of like acceptance of race. Like
there's a character of the Sinclair who plays the rancher
(34:57):
out of respect we say uncle, and you know there's
that there's that harmony that two people from completely two
different cultures can blend. But you know that there's there's that
respects as saying, and it's not about the color of
your skin, It's about your character and the respect you
(35:19):
have for each other. And that to me was like
I love those scenes and that it's that those things,
those little scenes that I love between the Native Hawaiian
and the Caucasian where they're dynamics, there's dynamics in those relationships.
Those are those are the things that that you know,
I some of the parts of the movie that I
(35:40):
just I just love.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
I think if you too take your passion for Indigenous
stories and languages, you'll be working hard for the rest
of your lives.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
That's what I'm afraid of.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, Well, thank you for spending time with us on
love song. God bless you and I appreciate your talent,
appreciate your efforts, appreciate your beautiful hearts.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Thank you, Thank you guys, well guy.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
The Wind and the Reckoning, which was made primarily in
the Hawaiian language with English subtitles, was one of the
first Hawaiian language films with an international distribution. It had
its world premiere at the Boston Film Festival on September
twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. It won Best Film and
(36:30):
has since picked up several more honors and prestigious awards.
It's being shown in select theaters nationwide, with more venues
added each day, and can also be viewed on several
streaming platforms. Go to Wind and Reckoning dot com wind
Andreconing dot com to check for local view options, to
(36:51):
watch the trailer, and to find out more about this beautiful,
beautiful film. If you have the opportunity to watch it
on the big screen, take advantage of the air conditioning
and theater popcorn and do so. But if it's not
showing in your hometown, then definitely go pop your own
popcorn and set yourself up for an incredibly compelling movie
(37:13):
experience and stream it. I hope the heat of the
summer is something that you welcome, and if it's been
exceptionally harsh, I hope that you've got someplace cool and
comforting to escape to. I hope that you're healthy and well,
and that if you are experiencing any trials, you've got
love and support to see you through to the other side.
(37:34):
I've discovered that reaching out to help others in need
is one of the best ways to heal ourselves, just
one of the many reasons. I'll use this opportunity to
encourage you to take a cue from the dog days
of summer to slow down and love someone
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