I've seen a lot of backlash from the martial arts community on the Bruce Lee portrayal in the recent Tarantino release "Once upon a time in Hollywood". The clip I saw came across as a hot headed arrogant, disrespectful character with some flying kick skills. My immediate thought was that I didn't like the portrayal, with quotes if being able to defeat Cassius Clay. From what I read and saw, he was quite objective about a matchup with Ali, recognising the skill he had, and stating that if he learnt to kick it would be much in Ali's favour. A lot of speculation could be said about what happened, but no doubt that the script was designed to show a dislikeable side of Bruce Lee. Should Tarantino be surprised that there is a backlash about the direction of one of martial arts biggest names of the last century? Anyone who has seen the clips that think it was a good portrayal? In the end it's fiction loosely based on history, so does the character fit the plot?
As far as I could tell that movie was Tarantino's love letter to the often forgotten stunt men/women, and how they're the "real heroes" of film making. He wanted a scene that demonstrated that and I think Bruce just hit the straw man sweet spot for few different reasons. The short scenes where Brice was teaching actors fight choreography showed him quite positively, I thought.
I loved the film, and actually enjoyed that scene. The entire movie is filled with cinema references, and really it looked like a satire of the characters he'd played, rather than Lee himself.
Or a satire of people's image of him, which would make sense given the philosophy of the film as about our perception of recurring characters
In other words, you were on the internet again. I don't know if you've noticed, the the web is the number 1 source of backlash in our daily lives. If I go 10 minutes without hearing about backlash, I know I spent those minutes offline. I have not seen the movie, but I saw the clips, and I have to say it's basically a caricature of his character from Enter the Dragon, Tarantino-style, and if anybody thinks Tarantino would purposefully diss Bruce Lee, they haven't seen many of his films. By his I mean either of them.
Sounds like something my mum would have said you me as a teenager Yes certainly a echo chamber of hate available at the touch of a button. Certainly a good reason to post on a level place like MAP to get a better perspective
