The Bruce Lee Fight Scene in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD Almost Saw Him Lose The Fight
There’s been a lot of talk regarding how Quentin Tarantino handled Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Some people enjoyed it because it was fun, entertaining, and unexpected, while others didn’t care for how Lee was portrayed seeing it as an insult to the character.
Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon previously talked about her dislike for how her father was portrayed saying:
“He comes across as an arrogant asshole 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.”
“I can understand all the reasoning behind what is portrayed in the movie. I understand that the two characters are antiheroes and this is sort of like a rage fantasy of what would happen… and they’re portraying a period of time that clearly had a lot of racism and exclusion. I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad-ass 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.”
I can see what Tarantino was trying to do with the character, as it was a way for him to set up what Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth character does during the climax of the film. They had to show that he had skill as a badass fighter. But I can also understand why people are upset with Mike Moh’s portrayal of Lee.
But the fight scene between Cliff Booth and Bruce Lee on the set of The Green Hornet almost ended a lot differently, and there’s no doubt it would have made things worse. You see, the original ending of the fight had Booth beating Lee and winning the fight. It didn’t end with the fight being broken up before someone won.
In a recent interview with Huffington post, stunt coordinator Robert Alonzo, offered the following information on how things were originally going to go down:
Round 3 of the fight would have been a much longer battle in which both men kept going at each other, with Cliff eventually making what Alonzo called a “cheap-shot move” that put Bruce on his butt. But the point wasn’t to turn Bruce into the underdog, Alonzo told Tarantino. Rather, it was simply to “explain to the audience the level at which Cliff was [operating].” So Tarantino agreed to have the Green Hornet stunt coordinators break up the brawl before the third round, meaning no proper victor could be declared.
That was a smart move. Bruce Lee fans wouldn’t have liked that. Tarantino seemed to be approaching the scene as a way to take down a Hollywood icon to elevate his fictional character. Alonzo, who is Asian-America, went on to explain that even Brad Pitt had concerns of the scene:
“I know that Brad had expressed his concerns, and we all had concerns about Bruce losing. Especially for me, as someone who has looked up to Bruce Lee as an icon, not only in the martial-arts realm, but in the way he approached philosophy and life, to see your idol be beaten is very disheartening. It really pulled at certain emotional strings that can incite a little anger and frustration as to how he’s portrayed. … There’s a certain mythology and mysticism about who Bruce Lee is, which is understandable. Being an Asian American myself, I definitely related to how Bruce was a symbol of how Asians should be portrayed in movies, instead of the old Breakfast at Tiffany’s model that was really prevalent back in the day. … I had a difficult time choreographing a fight where he lost. Everyone involved was like, ‘How is this going to go over?’ Brad was very much against it. He was like, ‘It’s Bruce Lee, man!’”
Tarantino is a huge fan of Bruce Lee, and it makes sense why he wanted to incorporate him into the film. Lee also had ties to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski so he fit right in with the story. But the way he was handled isn’t sitting well with everyone.
What did you think about how Tarantino handled Bruce Lee in the movie?