Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, has said that it was ‘disheartening’ to see how director Quentin Tarantino had portrayed her father as ‘an arrogant a**hole’ in his new film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. “He comes across as an arrogant asshole who was full of hot air,” Shannon told The Wrap. “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…Here, he’s the one with all the puffery and he’s the one challenging Brad Pitt. Which is not how he was.”
Lee, played by actor Mike Moh in the film, challenges Brad Pitt’s character to a fight and subsequently gets beaten up.
Shannon said that “it was really uncomfortable to sit in the theatre and listen to people laugh at my father.” She took issue with Tarantino, who she said “directed (Moh) to be a caricature” of Bruce. She continued, “What I’m interested in is raising the consciousness of who Bruce Lee was as a human being and how he lived his life. All of that was flushed down the toilet in this portrayal, and made my father into this arrogant punching bag. I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-a** 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.”
Shannon previously took issue with Tarantino for allegedly not reaching out to her before deciding to portray a version of her father in the film, which opened to positive reviews and Tarantino’s biggest box office opening on Friday. “With Tarantino’s film, to not have been included in any kind of way, when I know that he reached out to other people but did not reach out to me, there’s a level of annoyance,” Shannon told Deadline earlier. “There’s part of me that says this is not worth my time and my energy. Let’s just see how the universe deals with this one.”
{{/usCountry}}Shannon previously took issue with Tarantino for allegedly not reaching out to her before deciding to portray a version of her father in the film, which opened to positive reviews and Tarantino’s biggest box office opening on Friday. “With Tarantino’s film, to not have been included in any kind of way, when I know that he reached out to other people but did not reach out to me, there’s a level of annoyance,” Shannon told Deadline earlier. “There’s part of me that says this is not worth my time and my energy. Let’s just see how the universe deals with this one.”
{{/usCountry}}Once Upon a Time in Hollywood also stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie and others. The film is slated for release in India on August 15.
Follow @htshowbiz for more