Romance in Hawaii

I wanted to see more Hula dancing, REAL hula. My wife wanted the same.

I could not believe it when this popped up while I was perusing movies in Tubi, I clicked on it out of boredom, and quickly realized there was some Hula in it.

The instruction scenes in it were fantastic, it just needs some more actual Hula dancing with less drama, OR just more dance in it and a longer movie There is finally a movie out like this, Never thought to see it, this should be a GAF selection, no politics or hidden agenda, A little too much drama and a little too little dance

Also the actress should have done at least one more song.

I love Kelley Jakle, but I wonder about casting an obvious blonde in a role where that would be a definite handicap for the character trying to make inroads in the midst of a community with strong cultural values that border on xenophobic at times. The movie even makes references to that by using pejorative labels for people from outside.

As if xenophobia isn't enough negativity, Leah has a competitor for promotion who plays dirty using sexism against her and a boss who plays into it. "Women have to work twice as hard to get half as far." Unfortunately, at a time when Leah should be focusing on business, she decides to concentrate a lot of effort on socializing and Hula and seems to ignore what she was sent for.

Interestingly neither of these things is the focus of the movie. There is a lot of screentime spent on Hulu dancing. This combines with the romantic plot thread, but it also shortchanges that a bit.

From the minute Leah meets the hotel events coordinator, Ikaika, and then the property owner at least part of the general outcome is predictable. This becomes apparent before the midpoint. Another theme that seems to be universal in this type of movie is that of the Evil Developers who want to destroy everything beautiful putting only buildings in their place. (Are all Developers really that stupid?) I thought there were some rough parts in getting there because not everything made sense. To explain what I mean would be spoilers and I don't want to do that.

I love to hear Jakle sing and she does one song,

This could have been good with better actors and a bit of rework of the script. As it is, it seems artificial, forced. The leads just recite the lines but I can't see any feelings from them. It's difficult to watch.

The lead actress has a lovely singing voice and beautiful eyes. Maybe she is good in something else but this role wasn't good for her.

The male lead is very good looking but a wooden actor. I can believe him as a dancer. Otherwise, he is sort of boring.

I like films with cultural elements and I would like to learn about hula but, somehow, in this film, everything sounded fake. I don't know if the hula part was realistic. I couldn't really buy the premise.

Excellent movie, I live on Oahu in Hawaii and know all of the locations that were filmed very well. Im confused why they added the script saying that it was filmed entirely in Los Angeles, totally not true, it was definitely filmed here in Hawaii. It was neat to see all the locations that we see everyday be in the movie. They even had Romy's shrimp on the north shore. Her Hotel looks like it was the Hilton Hawaiian in Honolulu. There were scenes filmed around Kailua and Waimanalo and possibly one by Makaha. If you ever wanted to see what some of Oahu looks like, check this movie out. The story was excellent, we really enjoyed it and highly recommend!

I loved this movie. Not a typical Hallmark movie type. A real good story ececellent acting and beautiful scenery. I like the way the leads played off each other. The Hawaiian customs were interesting and extremely informative. In addition I appreciated no politics no hidden agenda just a very nice entertaining movie. I often wonder why more movies are done like this without the politics or hidden agenda. The story was original with good substance and very realistic Hackle the lead actress demonstrated very good range and believable. Hackles colleague can't act to save his life. He was comical and not in a good way. His part was ridiculous plus again his acting was forced. All in all a very nice movie with UpTv.