I recently watched The Green Hornet, a Michel Gondry-directed movie starring Seth Rogan and my favorite Taiwanese pop star, Jay Chou (Cameron Diaz also made occasional appearances, presumably for hotness purposes). I love Jay Chou, who plays the Green Hornet’s heroic sidekick Kato, and felt that this was a brilliant little bit of casting, especially from a business perspective: Jay Chou gets his name out in an A-list American film vehicle, and the movie gets a wider Asia viewing because it stars one of the region’s most beloved talents. Win-Win.
Chou gets headline billing and appears in most marketing promos for the movie.
A friend who watched the movie with me, though, thought that Chou’s English language skills, which are admittedly basic, detracted from The Green Hornet, getting in the way of comedic timing, and just making it more difficult to understand. He also felt that Chou’s lack of martial arts training – unlike his predecessor Bruce Lee, who portrayed Kato in the TV series – was obvious. He would have preferred to see an unknown Asian actor – national or foreign-born, no matter – with better English and martial arts skills cast in the role.
While we didn’t see eye to eye on that matter, seeing Chou in a prominent role like Kato does raise other questions, most notably: why aren’t there more Asians in lead Hollywood roles? In the case of The Green Hornet (in the 2011 film iteration), the Shanghai-born Kato certainly has all the leading-man attributes: he is without a doubt the smarter, more talented and better looking of the Green Hornet/Kato pairing. According to Wikipedia, Kato has genius-level intelligence, is a martial arts master and an automotive engineering expert. The Green Hornet? In the 2011 version at least, is dumb, immature and unaware of his tendency to lean heavily on Kato for his success (if you can call it that) as a masked crusader. Nonetheless, Kato is, by definition, a sidekick, albiet an untraditional one. The movie isn’t called The Green Hornet and Kato, it’s just The Green Bee Hornet.
In a basic Google search using keywords “asian male lead role movies”, this (Five Films where the Asian Male Lead Gets the Girl) and this (Top Young Asian American Leading Men in H-Wood) came up. But the majority of folks who think and write about this issue tend to note that there is a major lack of representation of Asians – male and female – in lead Hollywood movie roles. Indeed, M. Night Shyamalan’s mega-bust, Avatar: The Last Airbender, drew tremendous ire for its casting choice of Caucasians in most of the lead roles that were originally portrayed as Asian in the source material, an anime comic. Lots of supporting roles seem to go to Asian-American actors (Miles (Ken Leung) from Lost comes to mind), and from a personal standpoint I see a lot more diversity in Hollywood now than 10 or 15 years ago. But the Asian lead is still a scarcity in the American film industry (I’m not going to count Shanghai Kiss, which was a disgrace). Apparently the American porn industry also suffers from a lack of Asian representation, but that’s a different story for a different time.
Just out of frame, Seth Rogen furiously performs unspeakable acts on his body.
So, what does all this have to do with Jay Chou? Well, remember when I said that casting him as Kato was a win-win from a business perspective? I’m going to add another win, from a cultural perspective. The more times Americans (or western audiences in general) see an Asian face in a blockbuster film, the more they are going to accept and expect Asian actors – be they Asian nationals or Asian-Americans – to have a presence in Hollywood. Reviving Kato for a new generation of viewers is significant. He’s smart, funny and hugely talented, and though he doesn’t get the girl in the end, he is the most romantically viable character in The Green Hornet. The film makers make at least some effort to show a more multi-faceted Kato than a just super-smart kung fu expert: in one scene, Chou plays the piano; in another, he sings the chorus to Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise; in another, Diaz’s character asks him out on a date. Small but, I would argue, noteworthy details. Kato’s musicality is definitely a tribute to Chou’s career as a pop prince, but, Chou says, “I hope to show Western audiences that Asians don’t just do kung fu, but also sing, write songs and play the piano. So I put the musical element into my Kato.” For my two cents, I think it’s a step in the right direction, though I’d be interested in hearing from those who think otherwise.
Jay Chou’s performance in the movie probably doesn’t do much to elevate its status on Rottentomatoes.com, and there is still a fair amount of racial and gender stereotyping in the movie*, but hopefully, it will help to carve out a place for leading Asian actors on small and big screens.
*Not limited to Asian stereotypes. Black characters are weapon-bearing thugs and get killed off early; white men are wealthy and/or in positions of power; Cameron Diaz’s Lenore is “smart” but is largely present to be gazed at, not taken seriously. Some of these stereotypes could be attributed to The Green Hornet’s origins in 1930′s America, before we become post-racial with our black president.
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