Aurélien Poitrimoult: Kato and the Green Hornet Get Ready to Sting Again!
Aurélien Poitrimoult: Kato and the Green Hornet Get Ready to Sting Again!By John Overall |
How You Know Him: Worked as first-assistant director on Jean-Luc Godard’s Éloge de L’Amour (2001) Martial Arts Experience: jujutsu Most martial artists are familiar with the Green Hornet, the alter ego of fearless newspaper publisher Britt Reid who battles criminals with help from his sidekick, Kato. When the radio serial was turned into a comic book and eventually a TV series, it became the foundation for Bruce Lee’s success in the West. A modern interpretation of The Green Hornet had long been discussed, but the perennially stalled project seemed destined never to grace the big screen. Now it’s looking like that could change because of a short film from French director Aurélien Poitrimoult. Insiders are hoping its popularity will convince Hollywood to gear up for a possible 2009 release. What was the motivation for producing and directing this film? I’m a big fan of Bruce Lee because he was the only true actor and martial arts master—a lot of action stars are more martial arts master than actor. The choice of the characters and the subject was very simple; for a long time, Manu Lanzi (Green Hornet) and I had wanted to work together on a project. One thing we had in common was our passion for comic books, and Manu’s background as a stuntman and martial arts actor pushed us toward a more action-oriented choice. We decided on the Green Hornet, a character we both knew very well and that we agreed could satisfy [our] own wishes—Manu for the action and myself for the twists and turns on the comic-book world and the urban whodunit feel. Are you and the actors martial artists? I’m a jujutsu fighter. Manu is a French action actor and stuntman; he has already acquired a solid roster of credits, including Kiss of the Dragon, Samourais, The Touch, The Transporter, Danny the Dog and District 13. Patrick Vo (Kato) is a French actor and stuntman, too; he can also be seen in Samourais and Danny The Dog with Jet Li. Manu and Patrick did the choreography. I wanted the Green Hornet to be more a boxer and Kato more a kicker, [so] the meeting of both gives an ultimate warrior. Did you have people in mind when you did the casting? Manu and Patrick are close friends of mine, and we decided to work together. It was evident that The Green Hornet was the perfect project for us—for my love to make an action picture and to put the spotlight on the martial arts work of Patrick and Manu. Did you feel pressure to measure up to Bruce Lee’s portrayal of Kato? Not really because Patrick wanted to play Kato [and] only Kato, not Bruce Lee. It’s impossible to measure up to Bruce Lee.
When I went to the United States last summer to present The Green Hornet at the Long Beach Action Film Festival, I [had] some meetings with professionals. Winning a prize encouraged me to continue. I am writing a full-length film and would also like to [revamp] The Green Hornet but in an Internet serial way. How did you deal with the limited budget? [In] the beginning, The Green Hornet had two sequences, but [because of a lack] of time and money, I had to reduce [it]. I wrote a 30-minute version, as well as a treatment for a serial, but to concretize this project, we’ll have to negotiate with the owners of the rights and find some producers. How did you finance the version you completed? We raised the money, Manu and me, 50-50, but it cost less than $1,500. Our budget was minimum, but the help of our friends was maximum. The closing credits play like an old kung fu movie. Were you influenced by the Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers pictures of the late 1960s and early ’70s? I wanted to renovate The Green Hornet. My picture is more adaptation than homage. The credits could be a kind of homage. How did you create a modern interpretation of the Green Hornet and Kato’s relationship? I wanted to create another type of relation[ship] between the two characters. Today, I think that it is impossible that Kato is the servant of Britt Reid. Their relationship must be based on friendship and respect. In my script, I even described Kato as sifu to the Green Hornet. For me, the Green Hornet is a boxer who is initiated in the martial arts thanks to Kato. |
