Tarantino's Bruce Lee Fight

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Tarantino's Bruce Lee Fight

Postby Masato » Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:04 pm

I never watched this movie but now I will

What do you think of Tarantino portraying Bruce as a cocky asshole? Blasphemous? Accurate?

interesting


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Postby Masato » Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:04 pm



Quentin Tarantino Defends ‘Arrogant’ Portrayal of Bruce Lee in ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’

Quentin Tarantino responded to criticisms of the “arrogant” portrayal of Bruce Lee in his latest film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” claiming that it isn’t so inaccurate after all.

“Bruce Lee was kind of an arrogant guy,” Tarantino said at a recent press junket in Moscow. The film depicts Lee (played by Mike Moh) swaggering around the set of “Green Hornet,” denigrating boxer Muhammad Ali and picking a street fight with the evenly matched stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

“The way he was talking, I didn’t just make a lot of that up. I heard him say things like that, to that effect. If people are saying, ‘Well he never said he could beat up Muhammad Ali,’ well yeah, he did. Not only did he say that, but his wife, Linda Lee, said that in her first biography I ever read. She absolutely said that,” the director continued.

Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, and his protégé and training partner Dan Inosanto aired their grievances with the scene to Variety in July. Inosanto said, “He was never, in my opinion, cocky. Maybe he was cocky in as far as martial arts because he was very sure of himself. He was worlds ahead of everyone else. But on a set, he’s not gonna show off.” He added, “Bruce Lee would have never said anything derogatory about Muhammad Ali because he worshiped the ground Muhammad Ali walked on.”

Shannon told Variety, “He was continuously marginalized and treated like kind of a nuisance of a human being by white Hollywood, which is how he’s treated in the film by Quentin Tarantino.”

Critics, including Inosanto, took umbrage with the scene’s depiction of a stuntman holding his own against the “Enter the Dragon” actor, at one point catching Lee’s kick and throwing him into a car. Tarantino also defended that decision.

“Could Cliff beat up Bruce Lee? Brad [Pitt] would not be able to beat up Bruce Lee, but Cliff maybe could,” said Tarantino. “If you ask me the question, ‘Who would win in a fight: Bruce Lee or Dracula?’ It’s the same question. It’s a fictional character. If I say Cliff can beat Bruce Lee up, he’s a fictional character so he could beat Bruce Lee up. The reality of the situation is this: Cliff is a Green Beret. He has killed many men in WWII in hand-to-hand combat. What Bruce Lee is talking about in the whole thing is that he admires warriors. He admires combat, and boxing is a closer approximation of combat as a sport. Cliff is not part of the sport that is like combat, he is a warrior. He is a combat person.”

Tarantino concluded, “If Cliff were fighting Bruce Lee in a martial arts tournament in Madison Square Garden, Bruce would kill him. But if Cliff and Bruce were fighting in the jungles of the Philippines in a hand-to-hand combat fight, Cliff would kill him.”

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Postby Masato » Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:07 pm

Bruce Lee’s Daughter Saddened by ‘Mockery’ in ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’

“It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father,”
Shannon Lee


Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, says it was “disheartening” to see Quentin Tarantino depict her father in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” as “an arrogant a–hole who was full of hot air.”

In the film, (spoilers follow), Brad Pitt’s stuntman character, Cliff Booth, trades cocky insults with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), and the two agree to an informal, best two-out-of-three rounds fight on the set of “The Green Hornet” TV show. Lee easily knocks Booth down in the first round, but in the second, Booth slams Lee into a car, stunning him. The fight is interrupted before the third round.

Shannon Lee said it’s disheartening to see her father portrayed as an arrogant blowhard, because in truth, as an Asian-American in 1960s Hollywood, he had to work much harder to succeed than Booth and Rick Dalton (Leonardo Dicaprio), the fictional, white protagonists of the film.

“I can understand all the reasoning behind what is portrayed in the movie,” she said. “I understand that the two characters are antiheroes and this is sort of like a rage fantasy of what would happen… and they’re portraying a period of time that clearly had a lot of racism and exclusion.”

She added: “I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-ass who could beat up Bruce Lee. But they didn’t need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive.”

A representative for Tarantino didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Shannon Lee said Tarantino might be trying to make a point about how Lee was stereotyped, “but it doesn’t come across that way.”

“He comes across as an arrogant asshole who was full of hot air,” she said. “And not someone who had to fight triple as hard as any of those people did to accomplish what was naturally given to so many others.”


Shannon Lee saw the film Sunday. “It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father,” she said.

She said that her father was often challenged, and tried to avoid fights. “Here, he’s the one with all the puffery and he’s the one challenging Brad Pitt. Which is not how he was,” she said.

She continues her father’s legacy through a website, BruceLee.com, her Bruce Lee Podcast, and the Bruce Lee Foundation, which hosts summer camps that teach children about her father’s martial arts and philosophy.

“What I’m interested in is raising the consciousness of who Bruce Lee was as a human being and how he lived his life,” she added. “All of that was flushed down the toilet in this portrayal, and made my father into this arrogant punching bag.”

She said she understood that many characters in the film are caricatures, but noted that the film didn’t make fun of Steve McQueen, who is played by Damian Lewis.

She also pointed out that while “The Green Hornet’ ran from 1967-68, her father’s hair and sunglasses are reminiscent of his look in the 1970s “Enter the Dragon” era.

She said she didn’t take issue, however, with Moh, the serious Bruce Lee fan who plays him in the film. She said he did a good job with some of her father’s mannerisms, and his voice.

“But I think he was directed to be a caricature,” Shannon Lee said.

Matthew Polly writes in his book “Bruce Lee: A Life” that Lee struggled to break into Hollywood — even while teaching martial arts to some of its biggest names, including McQueen, Sharon Tate, and her husband, Roman Polanski, all of whom are portrayed in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.” (We also see a quick clip of Lee training Tate (Margot Robbie) for her role in “The Wrecking Crew,” which he really did do.

But he was often overlooked or cast as a sidekick, as he was in “The Green Hornet.” He was even passed over for roles as Asian characters, in favor of white actors who pretended to be Asian. He finally broke through when Hong Kong-produced martial arts epics crossed over to the United States.

Polly was also unimpressed with the “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” portrayal of the man he researched for years.

“The full scene with Bruce and Brad Pitt is far different than what was in the trailer. Bruce Lee was often a cocky, strutting, braggart, but Tarantino took those traits and exaggerated them to the point of a ‘SNL’ caricature,” Polly said.

He said the argument that leads into the fight with Booth — in which Lee said he could turn Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) into a “cripple,” would never have happened.

“Bruce revered Cassius Clay (Ali); he never trash-talked him in real life. Bruce never used jumping kicks in an actual fight. And even if he did, there wasn’t a stuntman in Hollywood fast enough to catch his leg and throw him into a car,” Polly said.

“Given how sympathetic Tarantino’s portrayal of Steve McQueen, Jay Sebring, and Sharon Tate is, I’m surprised he didn’t afford the same courtesy to Lee, the only non-white character in the film. He could have achieved the same effect–using Bruce to make Brad Pitt’s character look tough–without the mockery. I suspect the reason Tarantino felt the need to take Bruce down a notch is because Lee’s introduction of Eastern martial arts to Hollywood fight choreography represented a threat to the livelihood of old Western stuntmen like Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who were often incapable of adapting to a new era, and the film’s nostalgic, revisionist sympathies are entirely with the cowboys.”

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Postby Edge Guerrero » Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:26 pm

- Its called Once upon a time, isnt a real representation. I watched that scene a couple of days ago. Mike Moh is great, the guy is getting hate for a bunch of dumbasses. Brad Pitt is hillaryus. I liked the party that they play with the old excuse of not fighting, because its gonna kill!
And the cinematografy was great, no shake cam, no one million cuts to make guys look faster!

If Bruce was alive he would like the joke too. Dude biggest contribuition was opnening the market to martial artists of all races!

Btw, Boss!

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Postby Edge Guerrero » Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:32 pm

Masato wrote:Bruce Lee’s Daughter Saddened by ‘Mockery’ in ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’

“It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father,”
Shannon Lee


Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, says it was “disheartening” to see Quentin Tarantino depict her father in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” as “an arrogant a–hole who was full of hot air.”

In the film, (spoilers follow), Brad Pitt’s stuntman character, Cliff Booth, trades cocky insults with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), and the two agree to an informal, best two-out-of-three rounds fight on the set of “The Green Hornet” TV show. Lee easily knocks Booth down in the first round, but in the second, Booth slams Lee into a car, stunning him. The fight is interrupted before the third round.

Shannon Lee said it’s disheartening to see her father portrayed as an arrogant blowhard, because in truth, as an Asian-American in 1960s Hollywood, he had to work much harder to succeed than Booth and Rick Dalton (Leonardo Dicaprio), the fictional, white protagonists of the film.

“I can understand all the reasoning behind what is portrayed in the movie,” she said. “I understand that the two characters are antiheroes and this is sort of like a rage fantasy of what would happen… and they’re portraying a period of time that clearly had a lot of racism and exclusion.”

She added: “I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-ass who could beat up Bruce Lee. But they didn’t need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive.”

A representative for Tarantino didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Shannon Lee said Tarantino might be trying to make a point about how Lee was stereotyped, “but it doesn’t come across that way.”

“He comes across as an arrogant asshole who was full of hot air,” she said. “And not someone who had to fight triple as hard as any of those people did to accomplish what was naturally given to so many others.”


Shannon Lee saw the film Sunday. “It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father,” she said.

She said that her father was often challenged, and tried to avoid fights. “Here, he’s the one with all the puffery and he’s the one challenging Brad Pitt. Which is not how he was,” she said.

She continues her father’s legacy through a website, BruceLee.com, her Bruce Lee Podcast, and the Bruce Lee Foundation, which hosts summer camps that teach children about her father’s martial arts and philosophy.

“What I’m interested in is raising the consciousness of who Bruce Lee was as a human being and how he lived his life,” she added. “All of that was flushed down the toilet in this portrayal, and made my father into this arrogant punching bag.”

She said she understood that many characters in the film are caricatures, but noted that the film didn’t make fun of Steve McQueen, who is played by Damian Lewis.

She also pointed out that while “The Green Hornet’ ran from 1967-68, her father’s hair and sunglasses are reminiscent of his look in the 1970s “Enter the Dragon” era.

She said she didn’t take issue, however, with Moh, the serious Bruce Lee fan who plays him in the film. She said he did a good job with some of her father’s mannerisms, and his voice.

“But I think he was directed to be a caricature,” Shannon Lee said.

Matthew Polly writes in his book “Bruce Lee: A Life” that Lee struggled to break into Hollywood — even while teaching martial arts to some of its biggest names, including McQueen, Sharon Tate, and her husband, Roman Polanski, all of whom are portrayed in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.” (We also see a quick clip of Lee training Tate (Margot Robbie) for her role in “The Wrecking Crew,” which he really did do.

But he was often overlooked or cast as a sidekick, as he was in “The Green Hornet.” He was even passed over for roles as Asian characters, in favor of white actors who pretended to be Asian. He finally broke through when Hong Kong-produced martial arts epics crossed over to the United States.

Polly was also unimpressed with the “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” portrayal of the man he researched for years.

“The full scene with Bruce and Brad Pitt is far different than what was in the trailer. Bruce Lee was often a cocky, strutting, braggart, but Tarantino took those traits and exaggerated them to the point of a ‘SNL’ caricature,” Polly said.

He said the argument that leads into the fight with Booth — in which Lee said he could turn Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) into a “cripple,” would never have happened.

“Bruce revered Cassius Clay (Ali); he never trash-talked him in real life. Bruce never used jumping kicks in an actual fight. And even if he did, there wasn’t a stuntman in Hollywood fast enough to catch his leg and throw him into a car,” Polly said.

“Given how sympathetic Tarantino’s portrayal of Steve McQueen, Jay Sebring, and Sharon Tate is, I’m surprised he didn’t afford the same courtesy to Lee, the only non-white character in the film. He could have achieved the same effect–using Bruce to make Brad Pitt’s character look tough–without the mockery. I suspect the reason Tarantino felt the need to take Bruce down a notch is because Lee’s introduction of Eastern martial arts to Hollywood fight choreography represented a threat to the livelihood of old Western stuntmen like Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who were often incapable of adapting to a new era, and the film’s nostalgic, revisionist sympathies are entirely with the cowboys.”


- Can she post Bruce real fights here?
She proclaim about people dissing Bruce and disses the stunt-mans, the guys that make the movies amazing. :roll:

Wasnt Bruce famous for letting the stunt-mans actually showing in the front of cams and given them respect? Pretty sure he woundt like this commentary!
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Regret won't waste my life again
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Postby Luigi » Mon Jun 29, 2020 8:06 pm

Not sure if it was a genuine reflection of his character but the movie reminded me about that dispute Lee had with the other local kung fu guy where they basically had a 20 minute stalemate and then Lee went around telling everyone he kicked the guys ass even though they initially agreed to not discuss the fight.
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Postby Edge Guerrero » Mon Jun 29, 2020 8:58 pm

Luigi wrote:Not sure if it was a genuine reflection of his character but the movie reminded me about that dispute Lee had with the other local kung fu guy where they basically had a 20 minute stalemate and then Lee went around telling everyone he kicked the guys ass even though they initially agreed to not discuss the fight.


- Wong Jack man. But today i actually see things that people say that Bruce said, with a grain of salt. Remember reading that Bruce invited a martial artist to do a movie with him, the guy refused. So Bruce himself reached to the guy, and asked why he dindt want the part. The guy aswered:

- I respect you, but i am a fighter, dont want to lose to you.

Bruce laughed, said that its was a movie, he was the star, and obviously he woud win. So today i see him more as a professional, and the things people said to make his legend big, are actually a diservice to the man. He probably dindt even cared about the invencible aura himself.
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Don't be selfish, preserve this world for the next generations.

I'll never long for what might have been
Regret won't waste my life again
I won't look back I'll fight to remain


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