Why Quentin Tarantino Can't Stand Bruce Lee

The 2019 movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" was considered by many critics to be a return to form for director Quentin Tarantino. The film tells the tale of aging actor Rick Dalton and his stuntman friend Cliff Booth, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, respectively. "Hollywood" also touched on the life of real-life actress Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) and the horrors of the Manson murders. As usual for works in Tarantino's oeuvre, the flick was also somewhat controversial, with some critics taking issue with the handling of the Manson Family as a subject and the perceived lack of lines or agency for Tate.

But another scene, featuring a depiction of martial arts superstar Bruce Lee (played by Mike Moh), has proven to be especially divisive. In it, the martial artist is shown on a movie set, bragging about his fighting prowess and boasting that he could beat heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali in a fight. Having drawn the ire of Pitt's Cliff, the two have a fight, which sees Lee being hurled into the side of a parked car.

Bruce Lee is undoubtedly one of 20th-century cinema's biggest icons, widely respected as a martial artist and a charismatic leading man. In interviews, he introduced Western audiences to Eastern philosophy and to the discipline that underpinned his art. So many fans were shocked to see Lee portrayed in such a disdainful way in "Hollywood," and characteristically, Tarantino has stood his ground amid a wave of criticism.

Quentin Tarantino, a committed cinephile with a love of action movies, has previously been considered a Bruce Lee fanatic, with his "Kill Bill" movies noted for containing many references to the martial artist's work. Despite such allusions, in his interview with Joe Rogan, the director doubled down on his portrayal of Lee. "[He] had nothing but disrespect for American stuntmen," Tarantino said on "The Joe Rogan Experience," adding that Lee wanted to make the point that his American colleagues weren't good enough to work with him. 

Tarantino added that Lee would regularly "tag" — or intentionally strike — stuntmen he was working with during fight scenes to make takes look realistic. According to Tarantino — who cited biographer Matthew Polly's book, "Bruce Lee, A Life," as the source of much of his information — the practice led several stuntmen to refuse to work with Lee. The director also nodded to the fact that the scene in "Hollywood" in which Lee confronts Cliff is based on a real-life fight, which occurred between the martial artist and American stuntman Gene LeBell.

Nevertheless, elsewhere in the interview Tarantino describes himself as a fan of Bruce Lee's work, claiming that "Fist of Fury" is one of the all time greatest action movies. However, he also controversially derides "Enter the Dragon," which many fans see as a classic.

Quentin Tarantino's portrayal of Bruce Lee in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" certainly raised eyebrows among his fans. But it also infuriated members of the martial artist's family, not least his daughter, Shannon Lee. She has been vocal in her criticism of the film and its novelization, which Tarantino published in 2021.

In a lengthy column in The Hollywood Reporter, Shannon Lee asks: "Why does Quentin Tarantino speak like he knew Bruce Lee and hated him?" Highlighting the fact that the director never knew or met her father, she requests that Tarantino cease questioning his character and contributions to the worlds of martial arts and cinema. "I'm really f****** tired of white men in Hollywood trying to tell me who Bruce Lee was," she added. In a later Telegraph interview in 2023, Shannon Lee said she doesn't quite know why Tarantino decided to negatively portray her father, despite the influence of Bruce Lee on his work. She has also said that she believes that white men in the 1960s movie industry might have interpreted the Hong Kong-American icon's confidence as arrogance.

Tarantino has stated that he gets Shannon Lee's criticism. "I can understand his daughter having a problem with it — it's her f****** father, I get that," he told Joe Rogan. But he said that general criticism from moviegoers was unfounded. Matthew Polly, meanwhile, has distanced himself from Tarantino's comments, claiming that his book isn't meant to imply Bruce Lee treated stuntmen with disrespect. Lee's penchant for taking on challenging fights, however, is on the record.