Michel Gondry is making a Green Hornet movie which will star Seth Rogan and Nicolas Cage. The Green Hornet has an Asian manservant called Kato who has been played on radio and TV by a number of actors, perhaps most famously by Bruce Lee. Although clearly originally intended to be Japanese, the outbreak of WWII meant that Kato was more often simply identified as "Oriental" and sometimes even as Filipino or Korean. Originally, Hong Kong actor Stephen Chow was to play Kato but he dropped out. Then it was rumoured that Korean actor Sang-woo Kwone would take the role but now it has been confirmed that Taiwanese singer and actor Jay Chou (above) has been signed up. Personally, I don't think it's important that a non-Japanese actor will play Kato, especially given the history of the character, but it is interesting that no Japanese actor appears to have been in contention for the part. A lot of that is down once again to Japanese actors failing to put themselves in play for these kinds of jobs as happened with the casting of Sulu in the recent Star Trek and the leads in Memoirs of a Geisha.
