This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Made by the same production team as the successful "Batman" TV series and at around the same time, "The Green Hornet" is similar but different. Okay, so after getting past a similarly child-simple theme tune (though someone must have confused their insects as here we get "The Flight Of The Bumble Bee") we have another masked law-man, with his younger, also masked sidekick, driving around in a customised automobile fighting organised crime, employing gadgets and gizmos along the way, who by daytime is a respected pillar of society. But where "Batman" went for comedy through campness, the Hornet, while definitely still identifiable as a comic-book creation, plays it noticeably straighter, no pun intended.So there are no costumed villains, no "Biff-Bang-Pow" fight scenes or kooky comedy ("Holy Fortune Cookie!") and instead we get twenty five minutes of entertaining, escapist adventure. The big latter-day selling point of interest to film fans of the 70's is the young Bruce Lee appearing as Kato (although I think a change of name from Clouseau's Oriental valet might have been a good idea), the Hornet's martial-arts-expert chauffeur and junior partner. Lee doesn't get to say, or even do much but his kung-fu kicks, flicks and tricks are great fun. Van Williams makes for a good jaw-jutting lead, a campaigning newspaper editor by day and a frock-coated crime-fighter by night.The production values are excellent, although no doubt the superior scene locations, interior sets and even choice of cars were swapped around from time to time with "Batman", so similar do they look at times. Unfortunately the Green Hornet's sting somewhat surprisingly didn't connect with its audience, instead it was his rival in the ill-fitting costume over in Gotham City who cleaned up and got the big viewer numbers and a second series. Even a cross-over episode involving both heroes couldn't save old Greenie. That said, due, I think because they were so well made and also avoided infantile audience-pandering, I think this series holds up very well, some nearly fifty years on.

Like almost anyone else, I was drawn to watching this series because of Bruce Lee. I will give you a spoiler, I have more respect for Bruce Lee than I did before, for different reasons.I am more than willing to overlook some of the low production issues or campiness that any show had in that era. Star Trek and Doctor Who's producers did not spend much on the sets and by todays standards the special effects left quite a bit to be desired, yet these shows were great because of the cast and the fantastic plot lines of the shows. Yeah, Batman was campy as Hell, yet, Adam West and the rest of the cast seemed to be having a great time and the show had such an enthusiasm that it was difficult not to get swept away with it.I have seen other reviews that have condemned ABC for pulling it. In looking at it I can see why ABC canceled it. The real issue is that Van Williams, the lead, gives performances that are as stiff as a board. He does not put any emotion into his acting. The result is that the stories tend to drag and be kind of flat. There is not energy that there is with other shows.There are two cool things with this show.You can really see the evolution on scene fighting. Bruce Lee goes first with his rapid, Kung fu which here more than maybe even his movies has a grace that is almost close to ballet. Elegent and powerful at the same time. Then Williams will fight and his style is closer of the old cowboy movies barroom brawler. The Hornet fights with a slower style based less on speed than force. It is like Ying and Yang and really cool.The last really cool thing thing is of course Bruce Lee. Unlike, Williams he puts "emotional content" into every scene he is in. One little known fact about Bruce Lee is that he was a former child actor in movies in Hong Kong. But here you really to see that not only was an excellent martial artist he was also very underrated as an actor. He really had acting chops.I came to this conclusion only because the rest of the show was pretty mediocre. Lee could rise above the mediocrity and really shine. That is why I have more respect for him than I used to.Let's face it, if anyone other than Lee had been Kato, this show would have trashed and no one would have heard of it.In summary, Lee was awesome the show left much to be desired.

This was meant to be an action-adventure series about the grand-nephew of Texas Ranger John Reid (better known as The Lone Ranger) and a stacked luxury car named "Black Beauty", but ended up being a vehicle for the great Bruce Lee and his amazing exhibitions of the martial arts.While it didn't have the hilarious campiness of William Dozier's other series "Batman", it did have some goofiness about it. I recall one show featuring Canadian actor Larry D. Mann as some kind of freaky space dude who landed at Britt Reid's home to negotiate their takeover of humanity through the Daily Sentinel. This episode also showed Reid interrupting his TV station's programming via some broadcast console in his living room (yeah, no home should be without one) to warn viewers to take shelter and stay calm.The fact they had this false floor in Britt Reid's garage that clamps onto that bitchin' sports car, so that the floor can turn upside down and allow Black Beauty to roar out and save the day was kinda fun. Oddly, the Reid estate seems to be within a block of a seedy area of Central City, as Green Hornet, Kato and the rolling arsenal fly out from behind a billboarded wall, onto a conveniently abandoned street!!Of course, we can forgive all the wacky inconsistencies of the show, when we see the great Bruce Lee in action. Well worth sitting through all the silliness just to see that. How sad sexy Wende Wagner watched her career nosedive after Green Hornet. I always liked the idea of a fighting reporter like Mike Axford. Britt Reid must have been a one-of-a-kind publisher, because I just couldn't imagine a maverick like Axford working for control-freaks like William Randolph Hearst. Did I mention that I liked Bruce Lee?

No, there wasn't any movie made of the Green Hornet, rather, this DVD is a combination of 3 of the television episodes put together. There wasn't any attempt to splice the movie into one long narrative, nor come up with original material like its sibling Batman series (also executive produced by William Dozier).Created by George Trendle, the story of the Green Hornet is similar to many other masked vigilantes created before, like Batman (very similar, with their characters wealthy background and the use of a sidekick), the Shadow, and The Lone Ranger. And who can forget that hypnotic and iconic theme song with its blaring trumpets and similarity to the flight of the bumblebee? Van Williams stars as the Green Hornet, aka Britt Reid, a wealthy man who runs the Sentinel newspaper as well as a television station. Like all rich folks with plenty of money and a deep sense of justice, he investigates crime as his alter ego, the Green Hornet, with his green mask, black hat, and the Hornet's sting, aside from his gun. Naturally, he has a sidekick known as Kato, kung-fu master extraordinaire, played by none other than the best in the business Bruce Lee.Of course the action sequences all belong to Lee, with his exhibition of martial arts. The Hornet himself fights with the usual fist-only punches like a boxer, but with Kato, the action is spiced up. And that is basically the appeal of The Green Hornet.In this DVD, the three stories are forgettable - the first deals with a club whose members develop their own agenda to rid crime, the second has aliens who want to take over and detonate a H-bomb, while the last deals with Chinese Triads. While the stories might seem ordinary, you'd still glued to the screen just to watch Lee in action.And if it's action you want, then it's action you'll get. Instead of sitting through the stories to glimpse the action, this Code 3 DVD has a "fight" menu for you to zoom in on the action sequences only. It's a pity though that there's no preview or description to describe what you're about to see.Also included in this DVD is a set of photo gallery, as well as a documentary of the Green Hornet's transport - the Black Beauty, as built by Dean Jefferies using a Chrysler Imperial.