How Bruce Lee’s Fighting Changed Green Hornet’s Original Plan

Bruce Lee’s fighting style had a big impact on the plan for The Green Hornet. ABC’s The Green Hornet has a reputation as the TV series that helped Lee launch his career as a martial arts movie star. Lee had a co-starring role on the show a few years before his breakout role in his first kung fu movie, The Big Boss.

While living in California, Bruce Lee did a screen test for a show called Number One Son. Though the series didn’t get picked up, his screen test landed him a major part in The Green Hornet, a show which was created to capitalize off the success of Batman. Opposite Van Williams (who portrayed the titular hero), Lee played Kato. The series followed the adventures of Britt Reid, a journalist who secretly operated as the costumed vigilante known as Green Hornet. As for Kato, he was both a chauffeur to Britt Reid and the crime-fighting partner of Reid’s superhero alter ego. The series, which ran from 1966 to 1967, was cancelled after just one season.

Though the star of the show was of course Van Williams, Bruce Lee had a key influence on how the show’s fight scenes worked. According to a Bruce Lee biographer, fight scenes were intended to be similar to what westerns were doing at the time [via Newsweek]. Fights in westerns were somewhat slow-paced, and mostly featured continuous punching and characters being knocked to the ground. There wasn’t much blocking or technique involved. It wouldn’t have been an unorthodox approach by any means, but even so, Lee was strongly against it. Feeling that “efficiency” was the “essence of kung fu,” Lee managed to convince them to make big adjustments to the way fight scenes were choreographed.

It’s important to note that though The Green Hornet ultimately did incorporate Lee’s kung fu skills, he did have to reach compromises with ABC. For instance, Bruce Lee sometimes used high kicks in the show, despite holding the opinion that they weren’t practical for real fighting. Plus, they had to shoot some sequences in slow motion, as his movements were thought to be too fast.

When it became apparent just how impressive Bruce Lee’s moves were on The Green Hornet, other changes were made. Van Williams, who further developed his own martial arts skills from training with Lee, argued with producers in order to secure more screen time for Lee. Due in part to his efforts and Lee’s own performances on set, his presence on the show saw a substantial increase. It was clearly the right call since — even though the show wasn’t able to survive past one season — Bruce Lee’s Kato fueled interest in the series because kung fu was something new to American audiences. Long after its cancellation, the series also evolved into a cult favorite in places outside of the United States, especially Hong Kong. Ultimately, The Green Hornet provided a stepping stone to Bruce Lee becoming an international martial arts superstar.

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