(by Steven Mark honolulupulse.com 10-17-11)
The lovely actress Tamlyn Tomita first came to Hawaii in 1985 as Nisei Week Queen — Los Angeles’ equivalent of Cherry Blossom Queen — making friendships that have lasted ever since.
Just a few months after that visit, she called them up.
“I go, ‘Guess what? I’m coming back. I’m doing “Karate Kid (II)!” Can you believe it?” recalled Tomita, who is in town as a juror for the 2011 Hawaii International Film Festival.
“Karate Kid II,” which was set in Okinawa but filmed in Hawaii, starred Tomita as Kumiko, the romantic interest of Daniel DeRusso (Ralph Macchio). Tomita will make an appearance at a screening of “Karate Kid II” Monday night at Dole Cannery.
Beyond her appearances as Nisei Week Queen, it was Tomita’s “first ever” role in entertainment. She’d never taken acting lessons, modeled or appeared in television ads, but her sweetly formal presentation of the Japanese tea ceremony is one of the film’s most enchanting scenes. Luckily, Tomita had taken a course at UCLA on the tea ceremony. “It just provided a lot of comfort that I would be able to perform it with respect and not be ‘schlocky’ about it, and not just going through the motions,” she said.
She relied on her co-stars Pat Morita and Macchio for guidance throughout the film, getting tips from Macchio, whom she often called “Daniel” in the interview, for a dance scene. “He’s the one who actually taught me to syncopate that two-step,” she said, gesturing and humming to demonstrate. “I was like ‘Wait a second, I thought I’M the one who supposed to be teaching you. And he goes ‘Yeah, I guess I got to be a little bit goofy about it.’”
“Karate Kid II” vaulted Tomita into her long career, and though she auditioned “on a whim,” she understood how important the role would be. “Absolutely, I knew that working with Pat and Ralph in the second installment of ‘Karate Kid,’ and going to Okinawa, which Hawaii lovingly stood in for, was really special. It was a big pair of shoes to step into.
“I still get that, ‘Oh, are you that girl from ‘Karate Kid’?”
