Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2011

JAPAN TODAY

The words “action hero” and “Seth Rogen” don’t usually go together, so it was a big gamble for the pudgy 28-year-old Canadian to take on the lead role in The Green Hornet. Rogen, known for playing slackers and idiots in films such as Superbad, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, slimmed down considerably for the part. He described the film—which he also produced and co-wrote—as a project of passion that has taken him four years to complete.

“I thought we could inject something new into the genre,” Rogen said during a brief visit to Tokyo. Joining him were the film’s French director Michel Gondry, 47, and Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou, 31, who is making his English-language movie debut as Kato, the Green Hornet’s valet, sidekick, coffee maker and gadget guru.

When the trio arrived at a special green carpet event at Roppongi Hills Arena (accompanied by Japanese actress Ryoko Shinohara), there was no doubt that Chou was the most popular. The singer has been a bestselling artist in Asia since 2000, but is largely unknown in the West.

The Green Hornet is based on characters who appeared in a comic book and 1930s radio serial; the 26-episode TV series that followed in the ’60s launched Bruce Lee’s Hollywood career. In the movie, Rogen plays Britt Reid, the party-animal son of a media tycoon. When his father dies mysteriously, Reid befriends Kato, and the pair inadvertently become masked vigilantes after a prankish night out. Kato creates a car called the Black Beauty, equipped with everything a crime-fighting duo should have—grill-mounted flamethrowers, Stinger missiles, machine guns, wheel-mounted anti-riot spikes, ejector seats, as well as a fax machine, turntable and icemaker.

Meanwhile, Reid and Kato both have the hots for Reid’s secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), which leads to knock-down fights when they are not battling villains. “He beat me up pretty badly,” said Rogen of his action scenes with Chou. “What I like best about the story is that no matter how much they spar, these two people need each other, and it shows what they can do when they finally get along. I also think audiences can relate to Britt Reid more than other superheroes. They can look at me being a jerk and say, ‘I’m a lot cooler than that guy.’”

Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) said he consciously tried to make the Asian sidekick more hip than the hero. “Some people in Hollywood were really against that at the beginning,” he recalled.

Chou said he was extremely nervous about following in Lee’s footsteps. “Whoever plays Kato is always going to be compared to Bruce Lee. He is like God to Asians. I just tried to play Kato my way and bring my own sensibility to the character.”

The actors said they loved the big action scenes but didn’t always know what was going on while the cameras were rolling. “Michel would tell us to do something, and we had no idea why we were doing it or how it would look later,” said Rogen. “We’d sit in a car in front of a blue screen for half an hour, pretending we were being chased and dodging attacks. But they did tell us that whatever we built for the movie, we could destroy, so you’ll see lots of explosions.”

Chris Betros is the editor of Japan Today (www.japantoday.com).