Oh it's a real switcharoo!
Everything old is new again, yes? And this includes the kitsch surf movie North Shore, which was made in 1987 and, like all destined-to-become-cult-movies, was ridiculed at the time by critics.
This remake, imagined by BeachGrit reader Timothy Puñales, is set in a dystopia fifty years from now.
In a role reversal, the Hawaiian kid travels to Lemoore in an attempt to make his name as a professional pool surfer. Oh it’s a real switcharoo!
Let’s begin.
Hawaiian surfer Kamalei Moepono wins the championship at Pipeline and receives as his prize a ticket to Lemoore, California. One week later he travels to the mainland with his handmade Bushman, a small backpack filled with a wetsuit he has never used before and two freshwater wax pills.
“Don’t worry, mama,” Kamalei says before leaving. “Rick Kane Junior wins 100 thousand a year as a pond surfer. I’ll come back and buy you a new house.”
At the Ranch, he is greeted with ruthless bullying from local surfers, led by Rick Kane Jr, son of the star of North Shore.
“Hey guys!” says Kane Jr, “It looks like we have visits from the past!”
The boys make fun of his board and his appearance.
“This haole thinks he can surf El Rancho with a board made by a guy with his hands,” says another, laughing over the broken voice of Joe Turpel coming from the loudspeakers. Turpel, who is now eighty-seven years old, had left the WSL three years earlier and is reporting, live, each wave made by his late friend Kelly Slater.
Kamalei’s luck changes when he gets his dream job: working at a high-end surf boutique selling surf fashion clothes, accessories and the boards of his dreams, the Cable Fuego Pool Special.
The owner of the shop is Ferdinand Aguerre II, grandson of the President of the International Surfing Association, Fernando. The Argentinian businessman is skilled at discovering raw talent. He can feel that the Hawaiian deeply loves the perfection of the machine waves and Olympic surfing.
“I have noticed that you are not a young man like any other,” says Ferdinand. “I think that behind that ridiculous vintage surfer image you hide a true love for pool surfing and high-performance boards made in China.”
Ferdinand gets Pancho, the Ranch’s machine controller, to work an extra shift at three in the morning when Kane and his friends are usually at Lemoore’s best gentleman’s club, Leave it to Beaver (formerly Volcanic Eruptions).
Kamalei gets twenty waves a night between three and five am.
“I have noticed that you are not a young man like any other,” says Ferdinand. “I think that behind that ridiculous vintage surfer image you hide a true love for pool surfing and high-performance boards made in China.”
“Yes, sir, yes. Being the best freshwater surfer in the world is what I’ve dreamed all my life,” says Kamalei.
Meanwhile, the Hawaiian meets Dakota, an Arizonian stripper at Leave it to Beaver with augmented breasts and lips. She also works in adult films. A Lemoore princess.
Ferdinand Aguerre II gives Kamalei a magic board, so fresh from China he can smell the synthetics, just before the 50th Surf Ranch Pro.
At the same time, Kane finds out that the North Shore’s haole is not only is being supported by Aguerre but, in addition, he’s screwing his favorite dancer from Leave it to Beaver.
This makes Kane furious and he tells Ferdinand that the boards they are making in China are not what they used to be.
“These are ocean boards Ferdinand,” says Kane.
The surfers meet face to face in the final. Well, not really face to face, as one is inside the pool and the other one at the locker room, waiting for his turn.
The crowd is mostly on the side of Kamalei, the underdog from the forgotten North Shore of Oahu, where not a single pool has been built and surfers must settle for surfing only when the sea and the wind deem it possible.
The Hawaiian rips.
But Kane is not far behind and shows why he’s the number one in the ponds.
Michelob is sold in tremendous volume. Turkey-and-cheddar-cheese sandwiches run out.
Kamalei rides the last wave. If he achieves a 9.9995, he will win most prestigious tournament in the world.
The train begins its seven hundred yard journey. Kamalei paddles and stands up.
Silence.
The crowd howls as Moepono reaches the hollow section and prepares himself for the main act: the tube ride.
In this very moment, with every fan’s eyes on the Hawaiian, Kane furtively approaches the train and puts a broomstick into one of the steel wheels..
The wagon begins to slow and the wave slows down.
Kamalei Moepono gets a shampoo rinse. A head-dip.
The Hawaiian can’t understand what is happening. Each and every one of the 785 rights he surfed there before threw the tube in the same place where now, a mushburger, spoils his haircut.
But inside him lives an ocean surfer. A rider who has depended on the instinct and the ability to react to face the unpredictable waves of the sea. That’s why he decides to get of the tube line, prepare an attack bottom turn and hit the lip with no mercy.
Like ancient times.
However, the force exerted by the wagon on the stick locked on its wheel is so great that it finally breaks. This happens at the exact moment when Kamalei opens from the line of the tube to lay down his bottom turn. With the train running free again the wave recovers its usual course, and it’s as if a South Pacific reef has grown underneath. The wave throws.
Kamalei is out of position. He can’t reach the tube.
The trophy goes to Kane.
Someone in the audience perceives the trap and starts to mutter. Soon, everyone boos the new champion. But he grabs both nuts with his hands and shakes them up and down, while two girls pour champagne on his head.
Ferdinand runs out to challenge Kane but Kamalei stops him.
“It’s just a contest,” he says.
Ferdinand smiles and winks.
Dakota interrupts the scene. She has arrived topless.
Shortly, Ferdinand, Kamalei and a couple of Chinese guys that use to work as shapers in the Cable Fuego factory, but were promoted to wash the floors in Ferdinand shop, engage in a joyous gang bang.
Final credits followed by hilarious outtakes and surfing scenes that didn’t make the final cut.
