Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Stephen Chow(s) down Green Hornet


This is just a quickie to keep this thing on the sort of kind of regularly updated side of things. Stephen Chow, writer/director of Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, and CJ7 (none of which I've seen... I know... all my geek credit is gone... I need to get on that... anyone wanna loan me some copies?) has signed on to co-star as Kato alongside Seth Rogen in the Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg written Greent Hornet adaptation. Rogen mentioned long ago he'd love to have Chow play the part, and apparantly his wish has been granted.

But the news doesn't end there folks, he's also signed on to direct! This would seem to confirm that this will be a comedic version of The Green Hornet, although I don't know what anyone else would have expected from Rogen and Goldberg. Rogen was quoted a while back as saying they were toying with the idea of it being about Kato being more famous and recognizable than Green Hornet (Kato was originally played by Bruce Lee and is much better remembered by audiences); a story where the sidekick is more famous than the actual hero, which definitely seems like a premise ripe for comedy.

I'm gonna say I'm cautiously optomistic about this one, as I'm not familiar with the source material, or the director. But my yearning to see Seth Rogen don tights* ala Charlie in It's Always Sunny supercedes all of that. What do other people think about this choice?

*Our faithful (and possibly only) reader Dustin has informed me that Green Hornet doesn't wear tights, something I should have known based on all the pictures I've seen of the original show scattered about the net. As Dustin puts it, his costume is similar to The Spirits, just a suit and a mask over his eyes. Thus, my reason for being excited about this has been destroyed. However, Dustin assures me the source material is the kind of campy, fun stuff that Chow has made a career out of, so it sounds like a perfect fit. Consider me re-excited.

1 comments:

Dustin said...

I have Kung Fu Hustle for you if interested. I'd also point you to another Stephen Chow flick called "God of Cookery" which in my opinion is funnier than both Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. But that's like me saying Blazing Saddles is better than Young Frankenstein. You can't go wrong with either choice.

Green Hornet is essentially much like the Adam West Batman; campy, fun, a lot of fighting. In fact there is one episode of Batman in which Batman and Robin faceoff/team-up with Green Hornet and Kato. Apparently there was a bit of a controversy when Robin was supposed to fight Kato and win. I'm not sure if it was Bruce Lee who protested, but in either case, the fight instead ends in a draw. Which we all know would have never happened.

Unfortunatly Green Hornet wore a suit pretty much like The Spirit so there's no tights for Rogen.

If you can't tell, the fact that I'm 22 and I know of a show that really only aired in the 60's means i'm a sad bastard, but I really can't wait to see this, because CHow has yet to deliver a dud. I highly doubt it would be a film like this.