Arts Briefs
December 28, 2007
Jamie Chung Cast in ‘Dragonball’ Movie
HOLLYWOOD — Korean American actress Jamie Chung will star in next year’s live-action movie adaptation of Dragonball, the popular Japanese comic.
Dragonball follows the adventures of Goku, an adult humanoid alien who is sent to destroy Earth. Goku tries to fulfill the wish of his dying grandfather by collecting all seven of the world’s mystical Dragon Balls. Chung will play Chi Chi, Goku’s childhood love interest.
Chung, whose credits include ABC’s Samurai Girl and MTV’s The Real World, was born in San Francisco.
James Wong, director/producer of the Final Destination series, is directing Dragonball. The producer is Stephen Chow, who starred in Kung Fu Hustle. Created by Akira Toriyama, Dragonball is one of the most successful Japanese cultural exports of all time. The manga was adapted into graphic novels, video games and a successful television series that ran in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America.
— The Hollywood Reporter
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Japanese American Artist’s Portrait of Sinatra on New Postage Stamp
MILL VALLEY, Calif. — Artist Kazuhiko Sano’s portrait of Frank Sinatra is featured on the latest commemorative first-class postage stamp.
The U.S. Postal Service ordered the stamp to honor Sinatra’s long entertainment career as a Grammy-winning singer and Oscar-winning actor. Sinatra passed away in 1998, and has a post office named for him in his birthplace of Hoboken, N.J.
A 10-foot version of the Sinatra stamp was unveiled recently before Sinatra’s family and friends in Beverly Hills, Calif.
The original is a 15” x 20” acrylic painting that Sano laced with blue to accent Sinatra’s famous eyes.
A native of Tokyo, Sano studied art in Japan before moving to San Francisco in 1975 to attend the Academy of Art, where he now teaches. Sano’s work has appeared in museums, galleries and books throughout the world, and his commercial accounts have included American Express, AOL/Time Warner, the Walt Disney Company, and other major corporations.
— Marin Independent Journal
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Hawaiian Playwright Dies in Car Accident
HONOLULU — Playwright and children’s book author Lisa Matsumoto, whose pidgin-influenced works delighted audiences statewide, died recently following a head-on collision while driving the wrong way
on H-1 Freeway.
Matsumoto, 43, died after sustaining serious internal injuries and a broken neck from the collision.
Matsumoto was best known for stage productions, including the Once Upon One Time trilogy of fractured fairy tales with a pidgin spin. Burton White, artistic director and manager of Hawaii Theatre, where some of Matsumoto’s plays were staged, called her “a wonderfully talented woman who touched people who knew her.”
She also was one of a group of local playwrights working to create unique local theater by Hawaiians for Hawaiians.
Matsumoto graduated the Mid-Pacific Institute and the University of Hawai’i. Her works have been staged all
over the state, and ‘Ohi’a Productions, which she co-founded, offers theater programs in schools.
— The Honolulu Advertiser
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