"In Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood, Bruce Lee, an iconic martial arts legend, is portrayed in a way that has sparked
a heated debate. Some feel that Quentin Tarantino completely
humiliated Bruce Lee, and then he took it a step further when he appeared on the Joe
Rogan Show and said that if Bruce Lee fans have a problem with the depiction that they
can [Go Sick a Duck]. Well, Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee Keasler,
isn't exactly one to duck any smoke coming from Quentin. In a recent interview, she punched back at
Quentin Tarantino, so let's delve into the controversy surrounding Lee's depiction and
the ongoing feud between Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon. Let's rewind to the 1960s, a time when Bruce
Lee was revolutionizing the world of martial arts. His lightning-fast strikes, charismatic persona,
and unwavering dedication to his craft transformed him into a global phenomenon, inspiring countless
individuals worldwide. When Bruce Lee first came to Hollywood, no
one knew anything about kung fu and Chinese Martial Arts. Reporters were asking him what kind of Karate
he studied and if he had a black belt. By the time Bruce Lee passed, the martial
arts craze was in full effect in the US and everybody was kungfu fighting. Bruce Lee is probably the most influential
martial artist to have ever lived. 50 years after his passing he still makes
the covers of magazines; people still argue about him online; and there's enough interest
in his life that he's getting another biographical film. So with Bruce's standing in the world of martial
arts, and in pop culture, why would Quentin Tarantino attempt to tarnish his image? The fact is that what Tarantino did is deeply
problematic, and his justification for Bruce's portrayal is deeply flawed. Fast forward to 2019, when Quentin Tarantino's
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood hit the silver screen. In a scene that has since become the crux
of the controversy, Bruce Lee, played by Mike Moh, engages in a heated altercation with
Cliff Booth, portrayed by Brad Pitt. This particular scene triggered a fierce backlash
from fans, martial artists, and Lee's own family, led by his daughter, Shannon Lee. The scene in question had Bruce Lee saying
that he could make Muhammad Ali a cripple if they fought, which escalated into a fight
between Cliff Booth and Bruce Lee. Now some people point out that Bruce Lee fans
shouldn't be too upset over the scene. Yes, it looked bad that Cliff slammed Bruce
into a car the way he did, but the fight ended in a draw. The problem isn't the scene itself. I mean, yes, Quentin Tarantino did actually
go out of his way to humiliate Bruce Lee. Brad Pitt later revealed that Bruce Lee was
actually going to lose the fight due to a cheap shot from Cliff. Brad Pitt was very close friends with the
late Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son, and he pretty much refused to do the scene as originally
written. The bigger problem is this -- Quentin Tarantino
gave a bunch of interviews while promoting the novelization for "Once Upon A Time In
Hollywood," and he said everything in the problematic scene was based on his research
on the real Bruce Lee. But the thing is this -- all of Tarantino's
research was flawed, and everything he said in these interviews about "the real Bruce
Lee" is wrong. Tarantino said that Bruce Lee hated American
stuntmen. He was arrogant with them on the set. He never respected them. He always hit them because he wanted everything
to look real. Tarantino's character, Cliff Booth, is supposed
to be an amalgamation of the real life stuntmen, Hal Needham and "Judo" Gene Lebell. Tarantino said that Judo Gene Lebell was brought
onto the set of "The Green Hornet" to act as a kind of enforcer because Bruce Lee kept
hitting the stuntmen, and they had a skirmish that was meant to teach Bruce Lee a lesson. I have read multiple articles that talk about
"the real fight" that this scene in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is supposed to be based
on, and they all cite Judo Gene Lebell's autobiography as their source. The problem is that none of the people writing
these articles have actually read Gene Lebell's autobiography, and neither has Quentin Tarantino. I know because I read Gene Lebell's autobiography,
and he doesn't say any of this nonsense that people have been repeating about a fight on
the set of "The Green Hornet" or Bruce Lee tagging the stuntmen. Benny Dobbins was the stunt coordinator on
"The Green Hornet," and he also doubled for Van Williams. Benny called Gene Lebell to take some falls
for Bruce because nobody had ever seen anything like what Bruce was doing. Half the time, they were in awe of him, and
he was moving so fast that a lot of the stuntmen didn't know how to react. A lot of these Bruce Lee fanboys talk about
how "Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to speed up the camera to film him," but the
truth is that Bruce actually had to slow down. For one, he was moving too fast for the stuntmen
to react to him, and the other thing is Kato wears black and some of the scenes were shot
outside at night -- you literally couldn't see what Bruce was doing. Is it true that Bruce Lee hit a few stuntmen? Yes, he did when they were working in the
very early stages of the show. It's not like this was an ongoing thing. If Tarantino had actually done his research,
he would know that when Bruce Lee was giving martial arts demonstrations with his students
in Seattle when he was just getting started -- he had a habit of hitting his students
for real when he was too hot and fatigued. You can read about this in Jesse Glovers "Between
Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do." Tarantino didn't mention Jesse Glover's book
as a part of his research. On the Joe Rogan Show, he said his research
came from Matthew Polly's book,"Bruce Lee: A Life," and Linda Lee Cadwell's "Bruce Lee
The Man Only I Knew." Well, Matthew Polly called out Tarantino on
the comments, and he said none of what Tarantino said is in his book, and it isn't -- because
I got the idea to start making Bruce Lee videos after I read Matthew Polly's book a few months
after it first came out! Tarantino said the comment about "making Ali
a cripple" came from Linda's book. It's true, Bruce did talk about possibly fighting
Muhammad Ali one day, and he did say that outside of the ring, he might have an advantage
because he could use his feet -- but at the end of the day, Bruce said "look at the size
of my hands and look at the size of his." How come Tarantino chose to disregard that
part? Like I said, Quentin Tarantino's research
that he used to justify that scene is flawed, and what he attempted to do to Bruce Lee's
image is problematic. The question is WHY did Tarantino want to
knock Bruce Lee down a few pegs just to put Cliff Booth over in the movie? The portrayal of Bruce Lee in this scene has
been met with widespread criticism, with many alleging that it perpetuates harmful stereotypes
about Asian people and diminishes Lee's remarkable achievements. Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, has been
a vocal critic of Tarantino's depiction, calling it 'disrespectful' and 'insulting.' She went so far as to getting the movie blocked
from playing in theaters in China. Now Tarantino could have apologized. He could have said that it was a joke. I mean, I have had people attempt to explain
the scene to me, and they said that the fight doesn't actually happen -- it's just something
that Cliff imagined. Well, if it's something that Cliff only imagined,
or if it was only intended to be a joke, then why did Tarantino double down on his depiction
of Bruce Lee when he gave interviews while promoting the book? Tarantino said that everything he depicted
was based on his research into the real Bruce Lee, and he pretty much said anyone who doesn't
like it can go suck a dick. So what about Bruce's widow, Linda? What about Bruce's friends and students who
are still around? What about Bruce's granddaughter? What about Bruce Lee's fans who want to know
about the real Bruce Lee and not the latest thing in a clickbait video posted on YouTube? I mean, people like Donnie Yen, a very well
respected martial artist and action movie star who was inspired by Bruce Lee. I mean the man has played Bruce Lee's character,
Chen Zhen, twice, and one of his biggest roles is playing Bruce Lee's teacher, Ip Man. Donnie Yen said, in an interview, that Tarantino
was making fun of Bruce, and he viewed the fight scene as "cartoonish." It sounds to me like Quentin Tarantino can't
handle getting pressed about his misrepresentation of Bruce Lee after people started to check
him about deliberately lying, or just doing a really poor job of conducting his research. See the thing is -- this fight isn't a figment
of Cliff Booth's imagination. I actually read the book, and in the world
where Tarantino's movies exist, this moment happened. It served two purposes -- like everyone else
has already said, it was supposed to show how capable a fighter Cliff is so that no
one is surprised at the end when he prevents the Manson Family murders. The other reason this fight is in the movie
isn't actually explained in the movie, you basically have to read the book. See, Cliff gets basically blacklisted on the
movie sets because of his fight with Bruce Lee, a fight that he was originally going
to win. You know how Cliff is supposed to be this
special ops soldier and this badass stuntman who doubles for Leonardo DiCaprio's character? If he's so badass, why is he pretty much a
personal assistant who is driving Rick Dalton, living at his house, fixing his satellite,
and kinda mooching off of him? It's because the fight got him blacklisted,
like I said -- he can't really get any work, even as Rick Dalton's stunt double. Remember how I said the Cliff Booth character
is loosely based on Hal Needham and "Judo" Gene Lebell? I talked about this in another video I did
on this topic, but to keep things short, Hal Needham was the stunt double for Burt Reynolds. In Tarantino's world, Cliff preventing the
Manson Murders causes Rick Dalton to have the career that Burt Reynolds had, and Cliff,
you know where this is going -- he ends up having the career that Hal Needham had. The fight with Bruce Lee is what sets Cliff
on this downward spiral, but it's also what allows for his redemption. So that's why Tarantino did it. That's how it functioned in the story...but
the question remains, why did he need to use Bruce Lee to set up this redemption story
for Cliff Booth? I mean, there's a story floating around that
Hall Needham beat up John Wayne, I mentioned it in another video -- if Cliff Booth beat
up John Wayne while working on a Western, that would certainly have got him black listed. Why couldn't Tarantino use that? Well, I think Tarantino intentionally wanted
to knock Bruce Lee down a peg. People believe Tarantino is this big Bruce
Lee fan because he says he was a big kungfu movie fan growing up, but Tarantino wasn't
a Bruce Lee fan. He was a Bruce LI fan-- Bruce Li meaning,
Ho Chung-Dao, the Brucesploitation actor. Tarantino wrote in a review of "Soul Brothers
of Kungfu" that Bruce Li was his favorite kungfu actor growing up. He liked Bruce Li more than Bruce Lee, and
he believed Bruce Li was a better actor than Bruce Lee. People like to say ridiculous things about
Tarantino's movies, like Kill Bill, are homages to Bruce Lee, but it's not true. Some of that stuff may actually be homages
to Bruce Li's movies where he's playing a better version of a character that was originally
played by Bruce Lee, according to Quentin Tarantino. Well, there's also the fact that the whole
idea of Kill Bill being an homage to Bruce Lee is a straight up flawed thesis, but you'll
have to wait on my upcoming video when I tell you why everything Nerdstalgic said is wrong. The truth is that I do believe Tarantino,
for whatever reason, wanted to knock Bruce Lee down a peg to tell the world that he's
not so great. And Shannon? She actually punched back at Tarantino in
a recent interview promoting her own book. Shannon said "I've never met Tarantino. I don't know what his issues are with my father. Clearly, he thinks my father is cool, because
he has borrowed from him quite a bit. But at the same time, I think he has been
told a lot of stories by people who have encountered my father and had a negative reaction. "Those people may ahve found him to be overly
confident or arrogant. I have to say, in my experience, the stories
are mostly from white men. I think Quentin may have been told a lot of
those stories and believes them. I think a lot of people looked at my father
as uppity, you know?" "It's unfortunate because [Tarantino's film]
has started this narrative in some places where some people are saying 'Oh, Bruce Lee
was an asshole,' Look, everybody can be an asshole sometimes. I can be arrogant and angry in my life -- is
that something I would say I am like generally? No, my father was not generally like that. He was extremely passionate and driven." The controversy surrounding Bruce Lee's portrayal
in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood highlights the delicate balance between artistic freedom
and historical responsibility. While filmmakers have the right to take creative
liberties, it's crucial to approach sensitive portrayals with utmost care and respect. Quentin Tarantino wasn't at all respectful
with his portrayal of Bruce Lee, and he neglected to do any actual research into who Bruce Lee
actually was. It's like his researched was limited to online
message boards and YouTube comments. Donnie Yen was highly critical of Bruce Lee's
depiction in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Yen is one of the most respected martial artists
in the world, and his opinion carries a lot of weight. Robert Alonzo was one of the stunt coordinators
for the movie, and he actually choreographed the fight scene between Cliff and Bruce. He was not comfortable choreographing the
fight scene, and it was his revelation, in an interview, that Brad Pitt refused to do
the scene with Bruce Lee losing is also significant. It suggests that even within the film's production
team, there were people who felt that Tarantino's portrayal of Lee was unfair and disrespectful. Tarantino has not apologized for his portrayal
of Lee, or even acknowledged that it has been controversial. This suggests that he is either oblivious
to the impact of his work, or that he simply does not care. While promoting her upcoming book,"In My Own
Process," Shannon Lee's final words about Tarantino's comments about Bruce Lee were,"he
could shut up about it. That would be really nice. Or he could apologize or he could say,'I don't
really know what Bruce Lee was like. I just wrote it for my movie. But that shouldn't be taken as how he really
was.'" At this point, it's clear that Quentin Tarantino's
portrayal of Bruce Lee in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" is deeply flawed and problematic. It is important to continue to challenge Tarantino's
work and to hold him accountable for his misrepresentations of real-life figures who have left a lasting
positive impact on people. If you want to hear a true story about Bruce
Lee, like what happened when he crossed fists with a well-known Goju Ryu Karate master,
then you won't want to miss this video, so make sure to check it out. Stay tuned for more real stories and deep
dives into Bruce Lee's life, his real fights and challenges, and things you never knew
about his movies. Y'all keep training, remember the breathe,
and be sure to come back for the next video.
