Featured Image Credit: Archive Photos / Stringer/Getty / Daniele Venturelli/WireImage/Getty
Topics: Quentin Tarantino, Film and TV, Celebrity
Callum Jones
Topics: Quentin Tarantino, Film and TV, Celebrity
Bruce Lee's daughter Shannon Lee has addressed Quentin Tarantino’s controversial depiction of her dad in the 2019 comedy Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
Back before all of our lives changed because of a pandemic, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood did pretty well for itself, receiving an Oscar nomination and an 85 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
The film saw Leonardo DiCaprio star as a washed-up movie figure, while Brad Pitt featured as a stunt double in 1960s Los Angeles.
In the movie, Pitt’s Cliff Booth challenges Mike Moh's Bruce Lee to a fight on the set of The Green Hornet, and it's certainly fair to say Lee came across as rather arrogant.
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In an interview with The Telegraph, Shannon was asked why she thinks her father was portrayed like this by Tarantino, despite all he has done in the world of film.
She replied: "It’s interesting. I actually don’t know. 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.
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"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.
Shannon added: "They 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?"
The latest interview comes after a 2019 interview fresh from the release of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
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Speaking with IndieWire, Shannon labelled Tarantino’s depiction of her father as an 'arrogant a**hole who was full of hot air'.
Following that, Tarantino came out and defended how he portrayed Lee in the 2019 film, arguing that his deception was based on research.
Speaking to press in 2019, the veteran director said: "Bruce Lee was kind of an arrogant guy. The way he was talking, I didn’t just make a lot of that up.
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"I heard him say things like that to that effect. If people are saying, ‘Well he never said he could beat up Mohammad Ali,’ well yeah he did. Alright?
"Not only did he say that but his wife, Linda Lee, said that in her first biography I ever read. She absolutely said that."