The Green Hornet 2011

"The Green Hornet" film is released in North America and the United Kingdom on January 14, 2011 and in Australia on January 20, 2011 but we won't get to see it in Singapore until January 27, 2011 :(

Directed by Michel Gondry, the film stars Seth Rogen (Britt Reid / The Green Hornet), who co-wrote the screenplay with Evan Goldberg. Supporting actors include Jay Chou as Kato, Christoph Waltz (Russian criminal Benjamin Chudnofsky), Cameron Diaz (Lenore Case), Edward Furlong, Edward James Olmos, David Harbour and Tom Wilkinson.

The Green Hornet was one of those TV shows I watched growing up. The Green Hornet is Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher by day who goes out in his masked "Green Hornet" identity at night to fight crime as a vigilante. He is accompanied by his similarly masked sidekick and confidante Kato, who drives their technologically-advanced car: "Black Beauty".

It was due in part to Bruce Lee's portrayal of this character that martial arts became popular in the United States in the 1960s. Kato also used green sleeve darts as a ranged attack for situations in which hand-to-hand combat was either impossible or too risky. The Green Hornet's success in Hong Kong, where it was popularly known as "The Kato Show", led to Lee starring in the feature films that would make him a pop culture icon.

I searched the internet for Green Hornet action figures (particularly 1/6 scale 12-inch figures) in relation to the latest incarnation of this iconic pair of characters but was totally disappointed with the offerings available :( The Mezco 1/6th scale Green Hornet pair of figures look more like statues i.e. they just stand there AND most of their outfit is molded plastic!!! How's that different from the smaller scale figures?

Frustrated, I did the next best thing I could think of. I upgraded the Captain Action Green Hornet 12-inch figures by replacing the Captain Action bodies with Dragon ones and I'm quite pleased with the end result. I had blogged about the Captain Action Green Hornet figures before in my earlier posts HERE and most recently HERE

The moment I switched bodies, the Captain Action Green Hornet outfits / costumes looked more fitting and tailored to the figures than before. That plus the fact that because Captain Action was wearing full face masks over his head, the heads looked BIG and not proportionate to their bodies but now these two look more like costumed superheroes rather than Halloween costumed party goers, in my humble opinion anyway :)

I also chose a Dragon Caucasian for Britt Reid / The Green Hornet and an Asian head sculpt for Kato (wait-a-minit, Kato didn't have an alias? Isn't that too obvious when The Green Hornet calls out "Kato" and Britt Reid does the same thing in his office or around town in his civies?). They may not look like the real actors who played them (there have been quite a few) but with the mask and the hat covering most of their faces, you really can't tell haha. More importantly, I wasn't too perturbed by it

So these are my NEW Green Hornet pair of 12-inch figures and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

"Hornet gun... check. Hornet sting... check. Let's roll, Kato!"

NEXT: A closer examination of the upgraded Captain Action 1:6 scale The Green Hornet 12-inch figure followed by Captain Action 1:6 scale Kato 12-inch figure Revisited.