"It was really uncomfortable to sit in a theater and listen to people laugh at my father," Shannon Lee said.
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” captures the end of the swinging '60s, but not everyone thinks the depiction is accurate.
Bruce Lee's daughter is slamming how the movie portrays her father. "My father was made into a punching bag,” Shannon Lee told The Wrap.
“[Bruce] comes across as an arrogant a****** 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 added. “It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father.”
In one scene, Bruce, who's played by actor Mike Moh, challenges Brad Pitt's character to a fight. Pitt ends up crushing the martial arts legend.
Shannon, 50, said her father never would have challenged anyone on a film set. “[But] here, he’s the one with all the puffery and he’s the one challenging Brad Pitt. Which is not how he was,” she said.
Shannon slammed filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, saying her father’s portrayal was “directed to be a caricature.”
“I can understand all the reasoning behind what is portrayed in the movie. I understand that the two [lead] characters are antiheroes, and this is sort of like a rage fantasy of what would happen … and they’re portraying a period that clearly had a lot of racism and exclusion,” she said. “I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super-badass 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 added.
Tarantino has not responded to Shannon’s remarks but is known to revere Bruce. He paid homage to the martial arts icon when he dressed Uma Thurman in a yellow jumpsuit with black pinstripes in his film “Kill Bill: Volume 1,” a nod to what Bruce wore in “Game of Death.”
Bruce died in July 1973 when he was just 32.
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which opened last Friday, is Tarantino’s largest opening, grossing $41 million.
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