Local film about Japanese-American WW II units starts production

Wahiawa’s Hongwanji Mission on Thursday was transported back to a darker time for Hawaii’s Japanese — the days and months after Dec. 7, 1941, when suspicion hung heavily on those with ancestral ties to the nation that had just become America’s enemy.

Eight blue- and white-garbed kendo practitioners wearing helmets shouted as they glided across the wood floor and practiced attacking with bamboo swords. Among them was actor Cole Horibe.

In real life the mission was closed after the Pearl Harbor attack. The father of the man played by Horibe — Yoshiaki “Sharkey” Fujitani — was incarcerated by the FBI. Despite that, Fujitani later served with the Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section as a translator.

The kendo scene is planned to be part of the opening for a new “Go for Broke” film focusing on the origins of the famed 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II made up mostly of Japanese-Americans.

Fujitani and others were part of the Varsity Victory Volunteers — University of Hawaii ROTC students who willingly labored at Schofield Barracks even after they were declared “enemy aliens” and removed from what became the Hawaii Territorial Guard.

“The brave actions of these young Japanese Americans, along with the perseverance of the original 100th Infantry Battalion draftees from Hawaii, directly led to the formation of the all-Japanese fighting unit the 442nd — the most decorated combat unit (for its size) in American military history,” a release on the film said.

Filmmaker and author Stacey Hayashi received a $560,000 state grant in 2013 for the project and finally was able to start filming Dec. 11 around Oahu.

“What was Hawaii doing on Dec. 7 (1941) and before? And how did Hawaii respond to that call?” Hayashi said of the film during a day of shooting at the Wahiawa mission. “We all know what Pearl Harbor looked like, right? But was that local people? No. So this is a local story.”

Four years ago Hayashi created the “Journey of Heroes” manga, or graphic novel, which tells the story of the 100th and 442nd, but the “Go for Broke” film always was the larger goal.

She said she is “very grateful” for the state support but is still fundraising to complete this first film, a pilot that she hopes will lead to a series of similar efforts focusing on the 100th and 442nd.

“People need to know Hawaii’s story,” said Hayashi, the executive producer on “Go for Broke” — a saying used by the Japanese-Americans that conveyed risking it all in the name of loyalty to America.

Despite the lack of funding — and lots of volunteer and minimal-pay participation — the project was able to secure involvement by Ban Daisuke, star of “Kikaida”; Oscar winner Chris Tashima; actor Peter Shinkoda; actor Horibe, who is from Honolulu; and ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro, who is writing the soundtrack and has a part in the film.

“It’s an awesome story, and one that very few people are aware of,” Horibe said Thursday. “It takes place in Hawaii. That’s my home. That’s my ancestry.”

The “Go for Broke” pilot focuses on the Victory Varsity Volunteers, who were ROTC students at the University of Hawaii. After Pearl Harbor the students were issued bolt-action Springfield rifles and five rounds of ammunition with a mission to look for the enemy in the hills around Manoa.

They subsequently formed the core of the Hawaii Territorial Guard assigned to guard hospitals, power plants, food storage and other sites. But on Jan. 21, 1942, the unit was informed it was being dissolved — only to be re-formed the next day without any Japanese-Americans, according to the 100th Infantry Battalion veterans.

America’s leaders had succumbed to racist pressure.

“I think we cried. Sure. Just, you know, frustration, anguish, disappointment, the feeling of rejection … that you are being distrusted by your own country,” the veterans organization quoted VVV member Ted Tsukiyama as saying.

Community leader Hung Wai Ching and others suggested the students draft a petition to the military governor, Lt. Gen. Delos Emmons, offering themselves “for whatever service you may see fit for us,” the 100th Infantry Battalion group said.

The Varsity Victory Volunteers started with 150 young men, a number that eventually grew to 169 working on heavy labor at Schofield and earning respect along the way.

“Determined to undertake any task assigned to them in the line of their duty and responsibility as American citizens, 150 young Hawaiian-born Japanese who had been immobilized from the territorial guard volunteered their services en bloc to Army authorities,” a Feb. 28, 1942, Hawaii Herald editorial stated.

Hayashi said the original 100th Infantry Battalion, along with the VVV, “changed hearts and minds of the war board, and that’s why they formed the 442nd (Regimental Combat Team).”

“Go for Broke” is being filmed at Schofield, Wheeler Army Airfield, Wahiawa, Waimanalo, Waipahu, UH and Iolani Palace, Hayashi said. She hopes to release the film in the fall.

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Clarification: The headline has been updated to reflect that the film focuses on the origins of the famed 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The original headline only referenced the battalion.