Good concept, poorly executed.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This movie is a lot of fun to watch, the scenery is great, the singing lovely, the people beautiful, the characters interesting and the performances are very good too. My major problem with this movie is the casting of the two youngest children of 'the Doc' and Manulani - Sarah and Luki were in no way children of the Doc and Manulani - Leilani looked the part and played it well but Sarah and Luki each had at least one Chinese parent. They could not have had an Hawaiian mother and a Caucasian father. The visual clash really interfered with their being presented as Leilani's siblings. The two child actors did well - but couldn't overcome their appearance. Trying to pass them off as half Hawaiian and half Caucasian was really an insult to them and their own heritage. My other problem with it was the spanking scene - I know, those kinds of scenes were in several movies of that time period but even then I found the 'it's okay to spank a woman to get her to behave the way you (the man) want her to behave' was objectionable. Other than those two issues .. an entertaining movie.

We truly like this movie and we view it around the Christmas season every year. John Wayne and Lee Marvin are outrageous and Dorothy Lamour and Cesar Romero were very good as window dressing. Yes, it is not a classic or critically acclaimed movie and all of the Hollywood clichés are in it - but we still enjoy the simple message it contains. The story takes place in French Polynesia (actually Hawaii) where our heroes fought the Japanese (they never made that far). But, no matter, it didn't detract from the premise of the film and the storyline of the present (1963). John Ford did an adequate job of directing and the stars seemed to have enjoyed themselves. The scenery was spectacular and the last scenes were heartwarming.

Having just been to Hawai'i, I decided to watch movies filmed in Hawai'i. Even better (I thought) were that the films attempt to address racism and mixed race children. By was I wrong. In both cases I got a severely dated film that seems racist in it's attempt to counter racism. Last week was South Pacific= Woman learns to love "half breed" children & ends up with old guy. Donovan's Reef=YOUNG woman comes to meet her father, learns to care for her "half caste" siblings. And falls (for NO discernible reason) for her father's OLD friend. Lots of ethnic stereotypes. Lots of TOTALLY RANDOM fight scenes. Some discussions of god, random Christmas mass thrown in. Lovely views of Kauai, the Waimea canyon save about 10 minutes of it, but over all not worth watching.

Wonderful fun this movie but the miscasting is incredible!Wayne looks more like a grand-dad than an uncle to the kids.Lee Marvin steals the film with his superb cameo.Miss Allen is awfully mismatched with Wayne.In fact even Warden who played her father was many years Wayne's junior.Had he made this film 10 years earlier it might have been more plausible with the usual Maureen O'Hara.The story line is apt as well as the script.As usual Mr.Ford uses nature to good effect.A good roll-licking film for the die-hard Ford fans but no more than an escapist farewell to once an heroic star.John Ford probably was not aware of the tremendous changes there were going on.A younger,fresher actor to pair with Marvin would have done more justice.But in his lifetime there was only one man this director had in mind.John Wayne!