While “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” might be controversial in nature due to certain elements in the film, it is only one of two movies this year to gross more than $100 million domestically that is not based on an original intellectual property.
That means every other movie that has grossed north of that amount is either a remake, reboot or sequel and are all based on a previous source.
Yes, American audiences love Quentin Tarantino’s new movie but Bruce Lee’s daughter thinks Tarantino should do this one thing about her father’s portrayal in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”
There is a lot of controversy surrounding Quentin Tarantino’s ninth feature film “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”
Tarantino has been accused of nearly killing actress Uma Thurman during principal photography of the “Kill Bill” films. Brad Pitt was accused for having a violent interaction with his eldest son on a private plane, which ultimately led to his now ex-wife Angelina Jolie filing for divorce. Leonardo DiCaprio is consistently criticized for only dating young women – the 44-year-old’s current girlfriend is only 22-years-old.
Lastly, the actor Emile Hirsch who plays Jay Sebring in the movie was convicted of felony assault and battery against a female Paramount executive at the Sundance Film festival a few years ago.
Even the storyline has controversy with the revisionist rewriting history of the shocking conclusion, Cliff Booth’s (Pitt) character being someone who murdered his wife and got away with it and Tarantino’s depiction of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee as a brash, arrogant overrated fighter.
When Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon, saw the movie she said, “He comes across as an arrogant a–hole who was full of hot air. 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.”
She also added, “they didn’t need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive.”
Tarantino was almost forced to comment on Shannon’s outrage and he defended his depiction of the infamous Hollywood legend by saying, “Bruce Lee was kind of an arrogant guy. 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.”
And he does have a point. Bruce Lee’s wife, Linda, wasn’t the only one to make that assertion about the “Enter the Dragon” star.
According to Matthew Polly, author of “Bruce Lee: A Life,” Tarantino may have “exaggerated’ Lee, but he was awfully arrogant.
Polly wrote, “Bruce Lee was often a cocky, strutting braggart, but Tarantino took those traits and exaggerated them to the point of caricature.”
Shannon Lee is still furious about it and told Variety on whether Tarantino could somehow rectify the situation and she said, “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.’”
He probably won’t do that.
It’s important to note that Shannon was just a shade over four years old when her father passed away, so although she probably has memories of Bruce, most of what she knows about her father was likely second-hand.
Nevertheless, the people have spoken about “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”