what it was 

& 

what it will be

In 1998, Starwheels Productions began shooting Watermelon Sushi in Los Angeles. With black & white scenes depicting post-war Japan, the 120-minute feature narrative is equal parts comedy & drama.

Following 7 days of a 10-day scheduled shoot, a 4 1/2 minute trailer was edited & distributed. You can see it on Youtube, but be forewarned--it hasn't held up well after 25 years: Watermelon Sushi trailer

Because cross-cultural, interracial, mixed-race & transracial adoptee communities proclaimed their love for this film, a line of t-shirts was created as an opportunity to financially support & reshoot it. Buy a Hapa*Teez t-shirt & get a rear crawl credit for helping make this film. Hapa*Teez video

Welcome aboard our new Executive Producer, award-winning independent filmmaker, Doug Ing! His photo appears below, last row, right. Earlier this year, Doug financed transfers of our original beta tapes to digital files. Recently, he had the original 16mm reels processed in 8K. Sugoi!

Starwheels Productions will edit an updated version (with an updated script) using the newly processed footage alongside AI, animation & other elements that will reflect an authentic 1980’s hiphop look. A soundtrack album featuring old school rappers & Japanese enka singers will also be produced & distributed. Most likely, we'll fundraise for music licensing. In addition to t-shirts, we’ll also be offering posters & other collectibles for sale to help finance the film.

Meet the stars of the show, below, from left: BIG UPS! to the homee who started it all--Darlene Romero, pitching Watermelon Sushi to Debbie Allen in Santa Monica. Arrigatou gozaimashita! to the original cast of ladies playing Grandma Kazuko (Kathy Chung), Michiko (Grace Rowe) & Mother Junko (Coco Nishiyama). MAD PROPS! to actress & make-up artist Phoebe Holston standing strong with Oscars. Gratitude to Joe Calhoun, an early supporter, with Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Trent. Rappers Chuck D & Kool Mo Dee have both expressed interest in being featured players as has renowned enka artist Jero.

To DJ Yutaka who provided the music for the Watermelon Sushi trailer. & to our man in Japan, the late Derrick Holmes, who left us in 2012. To Mike Reed for his tech assistance, & to all the HIP HAPA HOMEEZ who bought Hapa*Teez t-shirts--among them: Rob Lee, Eva Abram, Cassie Hayes, Julia Baker, Teri LaFlesh, Carol Sugihara, Ejiroghene Bryan “Jiro” Efevberha, Andye Andinha & so many more whose names we'll add here soon.