My recent blog post and upcoming full review of The Green Hornet is based on the 3D IMAX version. Whether or not you need to see The Green Hornet in 3-D is highly debatable, as it was post-converted from 2-D. Unlike the disastrous 3-D version of Clash of the Titans, this film turned out to be a fairly successful conversion. By successful, I mean that the 3-D didn’t distort people’s heads or features as it was said to do in that 2010 remake of the 1980 Harry Hamlin-led flick.

In all honesty, however, only certain sequences really benefit from the 3-D overhaul — the “Kato Vision” stuff, specific action scenes, and the end credits. If you absolutely must see it in 3D, then IMAX is the way to go if there’s a theater with that capability nearby. Although IMAX is definitely a bit pricier than regular 3-D, I found the 3-D effect in IMAX to be much improved from the 3-D movies I’ve seen recently. The glasses are definitely much more comfortable, fitting over my own Clark Kent spectacles with the greatest of ease.

Seth Rogen and Jay Chou in The Green Hornet

Last night, I had the opportunity to watch The Green Hornet in IMAX 3-D. While I plan to submit a full review to LoveHKFilm.com in the next few days, it probably won’t get posted for awhile, and thus, may not seem very timely for US readers of this website. With that in mind, I thought I’d at least scribble down my initial impressions here.

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“Creative differences” — that’s the diplomatic way in which most filmmaking break-ups are explained to the public, and that’s exactly what was said when Stephen Chow left Sony’s The Green Hornet several months after he had been tapped to not only direct the film, but co-star as the Green Hornet’s sidekick, Kato, most famously played by his idol, Bruce Lee in the 1960s TV show. Chow had been quoted as saying,”The idea of stepping into Bruce Lee’s shoes as Kato is both humbling and thrilling, and to get the chance to direct the project as my American movie debut is simply a dream come true.” As many people probably wondered, why did Chow walk away from his “dream come true”? Well, now we have a possible answer, although whether or not the source is being facetious or not remains to be seen.

In the January 14th issue of Entertainment Weekly, director Michel Gondry, the man who eventually nabbed the directing gig after Chow parted ways with the Seth Rogen-led project, explains just what those creative differences were. According to a piece written by Benjamin Svetkey, Gondry says Chow had “really, really crazy ideas that you would not dare bring to a studio […] AIDS was involved. Plastic boobs were involved, too.”‘

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