Johnny Tsunami

The only Disney Channel original movie i ever enjoyed was "Brink!" the rest i thought were dumb. When I watched "JOhnny Tsunami" I got hooked! I thought it was sooooooo good. It's about a laid back, slang talking 13-year old Hawaiian surfer named Johnny Kapphala. When his uptight father gets transferred to Vermont, Johnny has to make quick adaptions. Johnny has to go to a preppy school where he only considers one student his friend which is Emily(Kirsten Storms-Zenon Girl of the 21st Century) who's father is the headmaster. After skiing with the preps Johnny meets Sam, a laid back snow boarder. Johnny learns that preps ski and public schoolers board. Inspite of the differences Johnny is the first prep to turn urchin. Now his fellow schoolmates consider him a traitor. And he is challenged to a race w/ Brett, the main prep. I truly adore this movie.

The reason i started snowboarding was because this movie. Great soundtrack and a great message from it as well

Young Johnny Kapahala from Hawaii has two great loves in life, surfing and his grandfather, the latter teaching him all about the former. The grandfather is known throughout the Hawaiians Islands as the legendary Johnny Tsunami. And young Mr. Kapahala shows every indication of inheriting that name and all that goes with it.

But Johnny's parents played by Yuji Okumoto and Mary Page Keller are going to be moving to Vermont where Johnny is going to get to go to a fashionable prep school because Okumoto is going to teach computer programming.

The free and easy life of Hawaii contrasts with the snobbery he finds among all the young yuppies of the future. And while Johnny finds he's managed to adapt his surfing skills to snowboarding, the ruling elite in the school are skiers as headed by an especially snotty young preppie in Zachary Bostrum.

It's a Disney Channel production so don't expect the best in the way of acting, but Johnny Tsunami has two very good things going for it. Nice location photography both in Hawaii and Vermont and very good chemistry between Brandon Baker and Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa as the junior and senior Tsunamis. Their scenes together are really something special.

Johnny Tsunami proved to be one of the most popular of Disney features, warranting a sequel, Johnny Kapahala, Back on Board with most of the same cast. I've always maintained Hawaii is so beautiful it's almost impossible to make a bad picture there. At least I've seen very few of them.

Look also for a good performance by Gregory Itzin as the headmaster of the prep school whose attitudes are most reflected by the student body.

I never expected to enjoy this movie, but trust it was really good. The movie's your classic teen trying to fit in story. Johnny, a Hawaiian surfer moves to Vermont. He doesn't fit in with his preppy peers at his school, so he makes friends with kids from a rival school. His peers consider him a traitor, and soon they get him in trouble with his principal and his parents. Guided by his grandfather's wisdom, Johnny finds a way to solve problems. What makes this movie so good, is the way Johnny struggles to fit in. Reminds me of "Angus."

Go "Richter" with this 1999 Old DCOM (Disney Channel Original Movie), "Johnny Tsunami." It is about a boy from Hawaii who liked to surf, but because his father had found a great job opportunity way, way, WAY far away from Hawaii (like, say, Vermont), Johnny had to give up on his surfing and make adjustments to his life. He attended a very nice private school and, while a silly rule stated that everyone there had to ski, Johnny decided to try snowboarding, likely because it's like surfing, but on snow. So this leads me to the $64,000 question:

"Which side will he choose?????"

This movie, as well as the question above, teaches us a lesson about how we should live life and what type of friends we should have. It almost reminds me of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken:"

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I; I had taken the road less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

"Johnny Tsunami" is just like that. Watch it!

10/10