Bruce Lee fans, a question

[Lionel]

Without a doubt the 1960's "The Green Hornet" TV show was among the most inspirational for boys growing up in that era.

Number 1: Al Hirt played a version of "Flight Of The Bumble Bee". Transcribed for the Bill May's big band and performed by the great Al Hirt. The tune then renamed "Green Hornet Theme" Damn! Al rocked!

(Previously I had tried to skip my private trumpet lessons but aftet hearing Big Al? I grew closer to the horn.

2. Every kid liked Kato more than the Hornet. Not just in Hong Kong either. As we boys in the USA would pretend to play characters from the show and all the kids preferred to be Kato.

Okay so here's my question,

While we know the the Green Hornet was really newspaper publisher "Britt Reid", did Kato have another name too? To the best of my recollection he was called "Kato" regardless of whether he was wearing his mask or not. The only difference seems to be that while playing the role of Reid's valet Kato didn't have much dialog. Indeed in those scenes where he us working/assisting Britt Reid Kato is seen usually in the preparation of the two of them about to change into their super-hero masks.

Like we see Kato switchin the Chrysler over to the Black Beauty, performing all the room changes to access their alternate appearances etc. To my knowledge Kato's dialog was much more extensive as the Hornet's comrade. Not as Reid's.


Bruce Lee was outstanding.
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"Check me if I'm wrong Sandy but if I kill all the golfers they're gonna lock me up & throw away the key"!

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[Bflatman]

Dialogue is not real dialogue, by that I mean that is is not conversational. If the dialogue does not help develop the scene or the character it is usually cut from the scene.

The Kato character was primarily a creation to assist the green hornet as a sidekick and as such his dialogue needed to be minimal when not being the superhero sidekick.

Kato was primarily martial arts and fighting skills and as such Kato's dialogue in many ways just defuses and weakens the characterisation.

I believe this is the primary reason for the lack of dialogue you see.

While I am a bruce lee fan I have little knowledge of the green hornet so my comments are conjecture.

One throwaway line from bruce himself used was that he got the Kato role because he was the only chinese actor who could pronounce "Green Hornet",

While amusing,this hints at an expectation in the production company of difficulty of the Kato actor to deliver lines, so the writers may just have not written much for Kato because of that assumption.

[kehaulani]

[pinstriper]

I thought Kato was Inspector Clouseau's sidekick.
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[Robert P]

[kehaulani]

[LittleRusty]

[BGinNJ]

I spent a lot of years training in JKD, so I've been a fan of Bruce Lee's martial art, more so than the acting. One of the documentaries about him claimed he was so popular in Asia in the Green Hornet that they called it "the Kato show".

Re: Kung Fu, the sad truth is, Bruce came up with the story idea (he was half Caucasian like the hero) but the studio, because of the racism of the time, felt they needed to cast a white guy, and David Carradine was better known in the US.

[kehaulani]

(An aside.)

[BGinNJ]

East coast, mostly with Tim Tackett's Wednesday Night Group people.

[Bflatman]

[kehaulani]