I just finished reading the Yunte Huang book on Charlie Chan; The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History. Apparently when Leonard Freeman was working on the scripts for the original Hawaii Five-0 series who used to eat at a restaurant called Wo Fat on Hotel Street in Honolulu, thus the name of McGarrett's nemesis.
He sure was...he's one of these two skinny kids in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRwO5ghkCsQ
Anyone have any ideas on what Wo Fat means when he tells McGarrett that he doesn't doesn't want to know about his father?
The inspiration behind the name: I go pretty often to a nice Hong Kong bakery right next door for my curry puffs and my chicken pies... mmmm, might have to go back soon...
Corner of Hotel and Mauna Kea I believe. Its one of the most well known buildings in Chinatown, in part because it was one of the first large buildings built after the 1899 Chinatown Fire (about 1900 I think).
Yap its still there. The resturant in question closed a number of years ago, but the sign and building are there. Its mostly a Chinatown market (ya know the kind of place you can find anything from mangos to whole pig's heads at) now.
I didn't know there were caveman drawings in Hawaii???? I hope the show doesn't start getting too bizarre. But, the Puff Daddy is on next week.
One thing that the original show had was local actors. This show lacks that. I think there's a little too many mainland actors on this version. It just doesn't seem too authentic.
I've seen petroglyphs on the Big Island, they're real enough. What I haven't seen on the show yet is rain, and you know those mountains on Oahu don't get that vibrant emerald green without a lot of rain The show is fairly silly, but I watch it for the scenery.
Interesting finale; the Governor is a crook, Wo Fat sets up McGarrett then kills the Governor, looks like it could be an interesting new season.