John Hirokawa, Hawai'i's top illusionist, constantly reimagines and reinvents his "Magic of Polynesia" show at the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber hotel.

Now he has a pair of awesome hardware items — a helicopter, which he pulls from nowhere, and a sports car, which he levitates and then makes it vanish mid-air — to thrill his spectators.

Snow, too. But more on that later.

It's all in a night's work for a magician, and he makes it look easy despite the sizable dimensions — the helicopter and the car are life-sized, not some minis.

Mostly frequented by visitors, the show is a must-see, or at least a try-see, for locals. After all, Hirokawa is a home-grown star, whose sleight-of-hand wizardry continue to amuse and amaze and has earned him a Merlin Award, the Oscar for illusionists.

The snow is the whipped cream on his magic cake; it should probably remain a surprise and not mentioned here, but if Slava the Russian clown startles and impresses with the fluffy white stuff, why not a boost and billing for Hirokawa's uncommon whirling and swirling blizzard?

It's a feat I first saw the incomparable David Copperfield do with amazing grace; small wonder Copperfield is an idol of Hirokawa.

Hirokawa personalizes the awesome special effect,  which begins with a touching and humanizing revelation: when Bryson, his son, was younger, he asked daddy about snow, something the kid had never seen.

So dad got scissors and paper and clipped out one of those paper snowflakes we all made in school. It was not what the kid envisioned, so the wondrous finale, with the fluffy foaming from dad's palms, is inspirational and eye-filling. Brrrrrilliant!

How does he do it?

That, of course, is a trade secret. The "snow" floats and glimmers in the light, consuming the magician. Kids, of course, love the snow; adults will smile with glee.

And therein lies the  how'd-he-do-that enchantment.

There are other pleasantries in Hirokawa's craft:

Like separating the head from a "cut" body.

Or relocating a woman to a cube, then tossing in drama with flaming spears.

Or the bit with a steel sheet succumbing to bodily impressions.

Or a house - with cast members inside — disappearing.

Hirokawa does a roll call, asking where folks are visiting from. They answer: New Zealand, Hungary, China, Korea, Japan, Canada. And the good ol' U.S.A.

Language would seem to be a barrier, but magic "speaks" to folks from near and afar, with precious little lost in translation, or lack thereof.

A Polynesian motif, with singers and dancers providing intermittent dashes of South Seas syncopation, is part of the visitor fascination; yes, there's a fire knife dancer, and an aerial hula, in suspension aboard a descending cubicle. Plus traditional Tahitian tamure dances.

Elvis Presley impersonator Ron Short is the warm-up act; he does the expected "Heartbreak Hotel," "Hound Dog," "Can't Help Fallin' in Love," "Love Me Tender" and more, with just the right twitch in the mouth and swivel in the hip. His red carnation lei, worn over a studded white jumpsuit, makes him look like The King in his Hawai'i phase.

Hirokawa tells me the show soon will undergo more change.

"I want to do close-up magic, the thing every magician first learns," he said of the primitive sleight-of-hand phase, where budding magicians do tableside tricks to wow the viewers.

In a cavernous showroom, that wouldn't work, so Hirokawa will employ video intervention, with his hands doing quick turns before a camera, making things appear or disappear, and the feats projected on large screens for the showroom audience to witness. That magnification can be frightening.

So, in a sense, he's ready  for his closeup — by relying on small feats.

After all, he's already got his finger on the biggies.

Reach Wayne Harada at 266-0926. Read his Show Biz column Sundays in Island Life. Read his blog at http://showandtellhawaii.honadvblogs.com.