The story takes place at the Topaz War Relocation Camp in Utah in 1941. It was a camp which housed thousands of people during the Japanese American internment during World War II. The plot starts after the Executive Order 9066 that FDR signed. For those who don’t know about E.O. 9066, it was when the “government” got scared that the Japanese Americans were some sorta secret spies. And basically forced them to move out of their homes, live in a camp in the middle of the desert, with fences closing them in, with US Army soldiers patrolling it. WOW!

In real life, the reasoning for this was that the US government felt that they would be in danger with all the tension happening. So they were keeping them safe…BUT if you read more about it, the turret guns mounted at the edge of the camps were pointing in and not out. HOW DOES ONE PROTECT THE CAMP WHEN THE GUNS ARE POINTED INTO THE CAMP. HMMM.

It also intertwines some of the story where the oldest son enlists in the Army, as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The unit became the most highly decorated military unit in the history of the United States Armed Forces, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients, earning the nickname “The Purple Heart Battalion”. Does anyone remember the saying “Go For Broke”? If not, you should read about it more here.

Anyways, the hook on the movie is that the prisoners, I MEAN the Japanese Americans start their own baseball league in the camp and makes the story more universal to all audiences. The youngest son ends up being this badass pitcher which I related to the most. Not being an All Star pitcher, but having two cultures collide and trying to just be who he is, himself. I was just surprised and amazed that it was on ESPN. I find that to be quite the accomplishment($$$). Maybe if you look for it, you can tivo it and watch it sometime.

Directed by Desmond Nakano. Starring Aaron Yoo (21, Wackness, Disturbia), Leonardo Nam (Finishing the Game, Tokyo Drift, Traveling Pants 2), and Gary Cole (Pineapple Express, Breach)

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Guess what today is? Another installment of Arowana Fridayyyyyy. Sometimes I wish everyday was Friday, but then that would just mean Saturday or Sunday would never come. Anyways, today we’re going to be checking out a music video we did a while back, ROUND ROUND, with our homies Kevnish, Prohgress, and J-Splif (with short hair) from FAR EAST MOVEMENT. If you ever bought a Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift HD DVD, you’d actually find the music video on there. Sick huh. It wuz until Blue-Ray kicked HD’s ass!

It was a full day shoot at a parking garage structure somewhere in LA . We called in our boy AJ to help us get the cars from the movie along with some from Toys R Us, some handsome actors from the movie SUNG KANG and LEONARDO NAM to make cameos, a bunch of lovely ladies (MODELS FROM HEAVEN) to help the sausage fest ratio, hot dogs times 200, and a bunch of great people that were down for the cause to help make the shoot possible.

Here’s the special treat. I’m gonna let you guys in on the secret cameos that Arowana Films made in the video. Check it out! At 1:41, you’ll see Dennis the 1st AD in red. Oops, haha. At 2:04, you’ll see Anson on the left holding a camera (he’s actually shooting the Behind the Scenes Doc at the same time being an extra). At 3:30, you’ll see Evan (the director) running off camera in the background. HAHAHA! Overall the project was a complete success. It was an amazing experience to work with great people like FM and many others. These are the days we cherish forever. For more behind the scenes footage, check out the doc Anson made for it here. Please don’t be offended for the first minute of it. We were young.

Also, FM is having an ONLINE release party (all ages and cities invited) for their very new and very sick soundin album ANIMAL. TUESDAY NOVEMBER 25th 9Pm. Don’t miss it! FM.TV

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