Review of The Green Hornet (2011) by Shiira — 17 Jan 2011

It's an inside joke, the green smoke that emits from the gas gun. The vapor is a drug reference, an allusion to pot, and Britt Reid, the layabout son of a powerful newspaper magnate, smokes a whole lot of it.

Kato is his dealer. Disguised as a servant(actually, he's a mechanic; it's politically correct), Kato makes his employer's coffee, and in every mean cup, he imprints a leaf in the foam. It's a metaphorical leaf: a marijuana leaf.

In David Gordon Green's "Pineapple Express", the Seth Rogen character's official dealer(played by James Franco) grabs a pot of coffee and whacks his attacker in the face. When they next meet, Saul is referred to as Mr.

Folgers. Britt and Kato are coded stoners, in which their drug-induced highs masquerade as natural ones. It's "Pineapple Express"(also starring Rogen) all over again, with James Chou substituting for Franco, who incidentally, makes a guest appearance.

Playing the role first originated by the legendary Bruce Lee, the Taiwan-born Chou gets to be the Kato that the producers of "The Green Hornet" television series denied the martial arts expert when the ABC show made its run in the mid-to-late sixties.

That dynamic on-the-set of "The Green Hornet" scene from Rob Cohen's "Dragon: The Life of Bruce Lee", where the late kung fu master(played by Jason Scott Lee) takes it upon himself to write his own stage directions, and in the process, ends up upstaging his white co-star(Van Williams, as played by Forry Smith), never happened.

Just like any television program of its time, there were stringent rules on what a minority could do, which includes, of course, playing one's own race, as Lee found out when David Carradine beat him out for the role of Caine in the popular "Kung Fu" series.

"The Green Hornet", despite being nearly unwatchable, in which the filmmaker, an auteur, like Green("George Washington", "All the Real Girls"), a Terrence Malick disciple, takes a stab at impersonal commercial filmmaking, and whiffs, nevertheless, has made a movie that may interest those who remember a pivotal scene in "Dragon", where Lee watches Blake Edwards' "Breakfast at Tiffany's", stone-faced, amidst laughter in the packed movie-house, as Mickey Rooney's comic take on a Chinese national, makes him realize that he needs to go overseas if he wants to make it big.

Kato was an insult to a man of Lee's stature, so this otherwise worthless remake, in a small way, pays homage to Lee, by rescuing this minor figure from the margins of the superhero universe. When Britt says, "Let's roll, Kato," it's less of a command that Kato should abide by the masked crusader of justice(or is that self-promotion) with the utmost subservience, than an invitation to go smoke some weed, as equals, like fratboys up to raising mayhem.

High as a kite, the future crime-fighting team decapitates a statue that bears the likeness of Britt's overbearing father, and by happenstance, they witness a mugging. With the severed head in their possession, "The Green Hornet" becomes a "head" movie; head, in this context, pertains to drugs and drug paraphernalia, and the 1968 psychedelic film, starring The Monkees.

Without thinking, they intervene on the accosted couple's behalf, in which Kato is front and center throughout the melee, relegating Britt Reid to the sidelines. It's not destiny, so much as the groovy thing to do at the moment, a happening.

Only a pothead would say, "Let's pose as villains, but act like heroes." Even though The Green Hornet and Kato save the city from "Bloodnofsky"(even their arch-nemesis is stoned), they don't get serious about their roles as saviors until the pair sobers up, which is represented by their restoration of the statue's head to its bronzed body.