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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet, which debuted on the radio in 1936, has been approved for its 21st century 3D makeover with Seth Rogen as publisher turned crimefighter Britt Reid, and Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou as Reid’s enforcer and partner Kato. Together, they don masks and pose as gangsters to infiltrate the criminal underworld. Cameron Diaz is Lenore, a secretary turned reporter who helps Reid and Kato understand the criminal mind, and Christolph Waltz plays a crime boss with an inferiority complex looking to take the Green Hornet out.

Directed by Michel Gondry, the indie director behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the screenplay by Rogen and Evan Goldberg delivers something many superhero films have attempted but rarely achieved — how a person with no special abilities and, to be honest, sub-average intelligence and courage, would act if they tried to be a superhero, which Rogen achieves with the bravado of a slacker manchild who’s finally found something to get excited about.

But perhaps the freshest twist in The Green Hornet is that the real superhero is actually Kato, with his seemingly superhuman martial arts abilities and Tony Stark-esque engineering skills, which he uses to build their weapon and gadget-filled supercar, the Black Beauty. One could also argue that the film’s real star is Jay Chou, for reasons you might not have thought of.

First, the fact that an Asian actor is co-starring in a mega-budget American crowdpleaser is, for better or worse, a big deal. Why? Because Asian actors simply aren’t getting lead or even many supporting roles for non-race-specific characters. In pop culture, black people have been cool for decades, and Latinos and gay people are having their well-deserved turn. But Asians have been passed over, with the coveted title of “cool minority” still tantalizingly out of reach.

Second, The Green Hornet is essentially a buddy slash odd-couple film about the friendship and rivalry that develops between Reid and Kato as they bicker over who’s the hero and who’s the sidekick, and which of them will win Lenore’s affections. An Asian actor getting equal screen time with an established white star in an American film is very rare, and an Asian man as a possible romantic lead with a white woman is practically unheard of. I’ve only seen an Asian actor kiss a non-Asian actress three times in my life in over 30 years of moviewatching. Kind of amazing and sad, isn’t it?

For those who’ve never felt it, it’s difficult to explain why it means so much for underrepresented groups to see positive depictions of those like them in popular culture. In The Green Hornet television series of the 1960s, Bruce Lee played Kato in a performance that quickly outshone his co-star Van Williams in the show’s titular role. In Asia, The Green Hornet was called the Kato Show, and it gave Asian Americans something they could point to with pride to show others that Asians aren’t the villains, perverts, enemy soldiers or servants that they’d been characterized as in popular culture, but could be ass-kicking superheroes worthy of respect.

While The Green Hornet isn’t going to usher in 2011 as the year of the Asian, it’s certainly a good start to the year, especially since, bottom line, The Green Hornet is a funny, unconventional take on the superhero genre and a seriously good time at the movies.

The Green Hornet is rated PG-13 and is in theaters now.