Bruce Lee's daughter wants Quentin Tarantino to "shut up" about her father.
Quentin Tarantino
Shannon Lee is horrified by Tarantino's portrayal of her late dad as arrogant in his new movie 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' and has not been impressed by the director's attempts to explain his actions.
She told Variety: "He could shut up about it. That would be really nice. Or he could say sorry 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.'"
Tarantino recently defended the movie, saying that it is a work of fiction but Lee, played by Mike Moh, who is shown in the movie calling his hands "lethal weapons" and claiming he could beat Muhammad Ali, in a fight, was arrogant.
He said: "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."
However, Shannon doesn't agree with his explanation and said: "One of the things that's troubling in his response is that, on the one hand, he wants to put this forward as fact and, on the other hand, he wants to stay in fiction.
"[Tarantino] can portray Bruce Lee however he wanted to, and he did. But it's a little disingenuous for him to say, 'Well, this is how he was, but this is a fictional movie, so don't worry too much about it.'"
And the passage Quentin refers to from Linda's book is actually a quote from a critic, who wrote: "Those who watched [Bruce] Lee would bet on Lee to render Cassius Clay [Muhammad Ali] senseless."
Tagged in Bruce Lee Quentin Tarantino