In the latest episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, writer-director Quentin Tarantino once again addressed the controversy surrounding his latest film’s depiction of Bruce Lee.
Following the 2019 release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, some viewers expressed concern regarding one particular scene featuring Bruce Lee fighting a stuntman played by Brad Pitt. In fact, the late martial artist’s daughter Shannon Lee said Tarantino’s version of her father came across “as an arrogant asshole who was full of hot air.”
In the scene, the fictionalized Bruce (portrayed by Mike Moh) exchanges trash talk with Pitt’s character Cliff Booth on the set of real-life Lee series The Green Hornet. The scene is a flashback (or possibly a daydream), and the fight results in a draw. Bruce Lee’s widow Linda Lee Cadwell also took an issue with the depiction, calling it “a caricature of himself” that was deliberately made him “look stupid, and silly and made to be insultingly ‘Chinesey.’” Mike Moh defended the scene, and at the time Tarantino maintained that Lee had a reputation in Hollywood at the time as “kind of an arrogant guy.”
Judging from his interview with Rogan, the 58-year-old Quentin’s thoughts on the scene haven’t changed much. "Where I'm coming from is...I can understand his daughter having a problem with it, it's her fucking father! I get that,” he told Rogan at the 0:30 point of the clip above. “But anybody else? Go suck a dick. And the thing about it, though, is even if you just look at it, it's obvious Cliff tricked him. That's how he was able to do it, he tricked him.”