WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, now in theaters.
Of all the historical entertainment figures to appear in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, one of the most divisive has been the Tarantino film's depiction of martial arts movie star Bruce Lee.
Played by Mike Moh, Lee boasts of being a far superior fighter to Muhammad Ali before engaging Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth in a sparring match for laughing at the insinuation, with Cliff evenly matched -- if not, better -- than Lee in the resulting fight. However, Lee's real-life daughter, Shannon Lee, is vocally unhappy with her father's portrayal.
"I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-ass who could beat up Bruce Lee," Lee told TheWrap. "But they didn’t need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive."
While Lee felt Moh's acting, specifically his mannerisms and voices, captured her father visually, she was uncomfortable that the film compounded the racism and treatment of Asian-Americans in the industry. Similarly, Lee pointed out her father would often be challenged to fights onset and avoided them rather than actively seeking them out to prove himself.
"It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father," Lee added. "He’s the one with all the puffery and he’s the one challenging Brad Pitt. Which is not how he was."
Written, directed and produced by Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood stars Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Burt Reynolds, Al Pacino, Tim Roth, Zoe Bell, Michael Madsen, Timothy Olyphant, Damian Lewis, Luke Perry, Emile Hirsch and Dakota Fanning.
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