My review was written in May 1981 after a Times Square screening:
"Beyond the Reef" is the sort of guileless juvenile romance popular on screen in the 1950s. Its pretty island and sea visuals have a lulling quality, but even as escapist entertainment the picture is too modest for today's sensation-seeking audiences.
Fable has a young boy (Joseph Ka'ne) growing up with a pet shark in a remote lagoon. When his old father-figure friend Manidu (Oliverio Maciel DIaz) dies, the man's spirit lives on in the body of the shark according to an island legend.
Fully grown (brother Dayton Ka'ne taking over the role), the boy is reunited with his childhood sweetheart Diana (Maren Jensen), a Polynesian-American who has been off to school in the States. While duo's romance blossoms in the idyllic surroundings, Ka'ne dives for the fabled black pearls in his lagoon, protected by the grown killer tiger shark called Manidu after its human spirit.
Despite some bloody shark attacks, film lacks any sort of dramatic drive, with the main conflict a meek subplot involving Diana's mercenary brother who is out to get the pearls and despoil the island with lucrative Japanese hotel development. Supernatural element of the spirit transfer is played for laughs as the shark (superbly trained) goes through various antics.
Though lensed in 1979 around the time of Columbia's "The Blue Lagoon" and possessing two handsome young protagonists in love, "Reef" missed the opportunities at scripting stage to tap the youth audience turned out by the Brooke Shields-starrer. What emerges is merely pleasant filler, destined to play better on the tube than theatrically.
Tech credits are variable, with Ramon Bravo's underwater photography hitting the mark. Post-synched sound gives cast neutral American accents, adding to intelligibility but making the picture needlessly remote.
Dayton Ka'ne (seen in "Hurricane") and Maren Jansen (latter adapting well to the native environment after scoring in television's "Battlestar Galactica") are appealing as the young lovers while cute and chubby Kathleen Swan delivers needed comic relief as Jensen's U. S. tourist pal.
Fable has a young boy (Joseph Ka'ne) growing up with a pet shark in a remote lagoon. When his old father-figure friend Manidu (Oliverio Maciel DIaz) dies, the man's spirit lives on in the body of the shark according to an island legend.
Fully grown (brother Dayton Ka'ne taking over the role), the boy is reunited with his childhood sweetheart Diana (Maren Jensen), a Polynesian-American who has been off to school in the States. While duo's romance blossoms in the idyllic surroundings, Ka'ne dives for the fabled black pearls in his lagoon, protected by the grown killer tiger shark called Manidu after its human spirit.
Despite some bloody shark attacks, film lacks any sort of dramatic drive, with the main conflict a meek subplot involving Diana's mercenary brother who is out to get the pearls and despoil the island with lucrative Japanese hotel development. Supernatural element of the spirit transfer is played for laughs as the shark (superbly trained) goes through various antics.
Though lensed in 1979 around the time of Columbia's "The Blue Lagoon" and possessing two handsome young protagonists in love, "Reef" missed the opportunities at scripting stage to tap the youth audience turned out by the Brooke Shields-starrer. What emerges is merely pleasant filler, destined to play better on the tube than theatrically.
Tech credits are variable, with Ramon Bravo's underwater photography hitting the mark. Post-synched sound gives cast neutral American accents, adding to intelligibility but making the picture needlessly remote.
Dayton Ka'ne (seen in "Hurricane") and Maren Jansen (latter adapting well to the native environment after scoring in television's "Battlestar Galactica") are appealing as the young lovers while cute and chubby Kathleen Swan delivers needed comic relief as Jensen's U. S. tourist pal.