Aug 6: Plastic Samoan love story in hot demand in US movie theatres

Extra Raglan screening Sat 6 Aug at 4pm.

Reserve a seat now on our Movies web page:
raglanmovies.nz

The Plastic Samoan love story, Three Wise Cousins, is in hot demand at United States theatres. The Kiwi Samoan movie is now screening in Los Angeles, Anchorage, Washington and Utah.

Aucklander Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa who produced it said, “Getting the film into Kiwi cinemas had been a challenge at the start, with only one exhibitor – Hoyts – agreeing to a few screenings to see how it would fare. We knew we just needed one shot. Just that one opportunity to prove ourselves and once we could, it just escalated from there. The growth, the interest and extension just went up – Hoyts opened up more screenings.”

The film then took off across New Zealand hitting close to a million dollars at the box office and another half million in Australia. Then it made its way across the Pacific Islands reaching the USA through Hawaii.

And now it’s Raglan’s turn with the film screening at the Old School Arts Centre in mid July.

Three Wise Cousins is a comedy love story about Adam (Kiwi actor Neil Amituana’i), a 22 year old New Zealand born Samoan guy who falls for Mary. On a ‘chance’ encounter he learns that Mary only wants to go out with a ‘real island guy’ – not a plastic one.

Adam realizes that to get rid of his ‘plastic’ ways and impress Mary, he’ll have to travel to Samoa and have his cousins teach him how to be a real island guy.

The journey sees Adam enlisting the help of his cousins Tavita (Fesui Viliamu) and Mose (Vito Vito). They teach him how to climb coconut trees, work a plantation and carry out chores in what is an eye-wateringly funny adventure.

Stuff 3 1/2 Stars“This often slapstick comedy goes for laughs, as the cuzzies spout idioms and double entendres of great wisdom.”

Vaiaoga-Ioasa, whose own island roots are in Puipa’a and Leone, described the making of the film as grassroots. The crew spent a couple of weeks in Samoa, where the majority of the film is set, before filming the rest here.

“It’s one camera – just me on the camera … and the cast and crew holding their own gear. That’s it.

“We knew what to shoot and we shot at speed. We definitely aimed to maintain quality, but we did it at speed.”

With no media team, the cast and crew took to Facebook and YouTube with a trailer to advertise the movie. The trailer itself reeled in more than 100,000 views on its first day.

Vaiaoga-Ioasa said the support from the public, particularly the Pasifika community, had been overwhelming.

“It’s really humbling and as good as the box office results are, the real impact is just the feedback that it’s cool to be an Islander.”

THREE WISE COUSINS PG

• Thursday 14^th July at 7pm
• Saturday 16^th July at 8pm
• Sunday 17^th July at 4.30pm

Raglan Old School Arts Centre
5 Stewart St, Raglan
Web raglanmovies.nz