As TV movies are fair game, I am going with
Cocoon - 1968 This was a two hour TV movie that served as the pilot episode of the original Five-O TV series. I am definitely a Five-O fanatic and this jewel started it all. It is good one for sure - the only failing was that they had some stiff playing the Danny Williams character. This was corrected in the regular series when James MacArthur took over the roll.
The plot is quite good. An American intelligence agent is found dead on the beach. It has been made to look like the man drowned but McGarrett was friends with the guy and knew that he did not swim. McGarrett and Five-O dig in and investigate the death as a homicide. This leads McGarrett to a student that the dead agent was dating played by the lovely Nancy Kwan. Remarkably, McGarrett takes her out on a date! This is highly unusual as through out the series, McGarrett is typically a bit of a hard ass and doesn't have time dalliances.
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loginAlso during the date, one can actually see Helen Kuoha-Torco's face. She is the hula dancer whose hips are shown in the intro to every Five-O episode from then on:
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loginMcGarrett continues to clash with US intelligence agents played by Leslie Nielsen and Andrew Duggan.
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login As the investigation continues we learn more about the Five-O team. As McGarrett enters the Five-O offices we get a view of the Iolani Palace where the Five O's offices reside.:
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loginAs McGarrett walks in from parking his bad ass black Mercury, there is a tour bus parked outside whose operator is played by Yankee Chang. They exchange pleasantries in Cantonese. AFAIK this is the only time in the 12 year run of the show that we hear McGarrett speak anything but English.
We also get to learn more about the Five O team. Chin Ho Kelly was played by Kam Fong and Kono Kalakaua was played by Zulu.
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login One of the neat things about the original series was with it being filmed on location in Hawaii there was not a huge pool of acting talent to utilize. So they had to look around. Kam Fong was a Honolulu police officer at one time and Zulu had a night club act in a Waikiki club. While not appearing in the pilot other examples of this are the criminalist Che Fong whom was played by Harry Endo - he was a local banker. Kwan Hi Lim was an attorney who played lots of bad guys during the series. He was picked because he looked 'sinister':
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loginFive-O's investigation eventually ends up on a rust bucket of a freighter where McGarrett encounters his nemis, the Chinese agent named Wo Fat who is played by Khigh Dhiegh
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loginBTW - the name Wo Fat was derived from the oldest chinese restaurant in Honolulu. Mrs. Walks and myself had a memorable meal there on our first visit to the Islands.
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loginIt turns out that the US agent played by Duggan is a traitor and working with Wo Fat to roll up US assets through out Asia. In order to break captured agents, Wo Fat uses a horrifying sensory depravation chamber - hence the name Cocoon. McGarrett is prepped for this torture and dunked in.
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loginEveryone else eventually breaks down but McGarrett being McGarrett does not, and turns the tables on the traitor.
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loginWo Fat escapes of course and remains a thorn in Five-O's side until the final episode of the Series which aired in 1980 -
Woe to Wo Fat.
When McGarrett finally arrests him.