January 20 - The Hawaiians

Today’s movie is a period drama with a scene that happens on January 20. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

THE HAWAIIANS   

            Black Sheep Whip Hoxworth returns to Hawaii and staffs his sugarcane plantation with Chinese indentured laborers, including Mun Ki and his concubine Nyuk Tsin. He wants to eventually return to China with his children, while Nyuk does not. Whip steals pineapples from French Guinea and starts raising them in Hawaii. Whip marries Purity, who is descended from Hawaiian royalty, but due to inbreeding, she  eventually goes insane. When Mun Ki contracts leprosy, Nyuk goes with him to the leper colony.When she returns to civilization after his death, she finds her children are prospering. Then plague breaks out in Chinatown. On January 20, 1900 [2:04:09 to 2:09:42] Chinatown is set on fire to contain the disease, but Nyuk and her oldest son Asia figure out a way to convert this disaster to their advantage. Then Whip’s son wants to marry Nyuk’s daughter.

Hawaii by James Mitchner (Random House, New York, 1959) at pages 590-591 give the date of the fire

Director - Tom Gries

Screenplay - James R. Webb

Producer - Walter Mirisch

Released – June 17,  1970

Runtime – 2 hours 14 minutes

Starring –

Charlton Heston as Whip Hoxworth

Mako as Mun Ki

Tina Chen as Nyuk Tsin

Geraldine Chaplin as Purity

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015