Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, July 26, 2019) Movie • Page 57

For me personally, it's not just that the portrayal of Bruce Lee is negative, it's that it's also brief and one-dimensional. Should I be happy/grateful that QT is showing that Asian people can be flawed? In a movie where 90% of the cast and 90% of the screen time is white, he's doing the bare minimum, and that's not doing anyone any good. Yeah, Crazy Rich Asians' portrayal of Singapore is arguably flawed, but omg everyone looks like me and all the characters are fleshed out. I never get to have that.

 

This isn't a biopic, it's not a grounded, realistic story. It's a fantasy/fairy tale, everything is heightened. While I'm sure the nuance would be lost on a lot of people, Tarantino is not intending anyone come away from this movie feeling "so that's what Bruce Lee was like"

 

honestly idk how that has to do with what i said?

 

It wasn't a direct response to you, more a continued musing on the general topic

 

Just came out of viewing number 4..

People really need to just shut the fuck up and quit reaching in regards to the Bruce Lee drama. These people want to cry foul over Tarantino’s work yet I guarantee you they didn’t even watch the film and are basing their judgment from the trailer and/or poorly-transitioned word of mouth. Wanna know how I know this? Because the entire portrayal is taken from an exaggerated daydream from a FICTIONAL CHARACTER.

I’m surprised no one’s even mentioned the other scene with Lee in it. The one where he’s briefly training Sharon Tate for her fight scene in The Wrecking Crew in a professional, non-arrogant manner.

 

Just gonna assume that's not directed at me, either.

 

Not like there was a linked thinkpiece and whole conversation about the topic before you posted or anything

 

I don't think this film is sacrosanct or anything, but man it feels like a lot of the controversies around this film are in such bad faith.

I don't want to invalidate the feelings of those who feel negatively about the Lee scene necessarily... but the fact that it has dominated so much of the discourse is a bit disappointing to me when there is so much going on in the film, that I feel hasn't been talked about at all, in service of dunking on an admittedly problematic, unlikable creator in attempts to just dismiss the film outright.

 

Why would it be?

 

Exactly. There's no reason I should take it personally. But I had just misinterpreted @Nathan 's post, so. I was more referring to my previous confusion than anything.

Just generally, though, as @DeviantRogue sort of put it, I feel like I'm repeatedly being invalidated in here regarding this issue, whether it's intentional/directed to me or not.

 

You as an Asian American have every right to feel the way you do about Lee’s portrayal. Don’t want to diminish that. Though just wanted to make sure you were aware most of the posts were about the think pieces not your posts specifically. Carry on

 

I thought I saw a tweet that linked an article when the movie just came out that was by an Asian American who agreed with the portrayal, but I can’t find it.

 

you might be thinking of this one by Walter Chaw

 

that's a point ive seen made, when he's portrayed, albeit extremely briefly in a non flashback/daydream scene, he comes across as tender/caring in his training of Tate

 

Top 3 for sure. Inglorious Basterds right behind at #4

 

There is that direct juxtaposition between Lee based on those two scenes that I do think works in service of a film ostensibly about mythmaking, whether you take the scene with cliff as fact or not, it works either way... if this was reality than it's demythologizing Lee, if it was imagined/exaggerated it's Cliff mythologizing himself to reconcile with not getting work anymore.

 

For better or worse, this scene seems to have sparked lots of conversations about Bruce - ones frequently going beyond the highschool lunch table "who would win in a fight" debates, instead focusing more on the myth of Bruce vs the real human.

I remember a time when we got to geek out over this stuff more often. It feels like martial arts movies have kinda gone out the door and were replaced mostly by action films with tons of cgi and characters with superpowers and stuff. I can't recall a anything since 2011's The Raid that had everyone as hype as Jackie Chan and Jet Li films in the 90's and early 2000's.

So I have to wonder if, once the sting of seeing Bruce get punked out heals, if these conversations were ultimately the intent of that scene. Similar to the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, the scar on Aldo's neck, and other various Rorschach test moments he loads into his films. If so I appreciate that much about it, despite it being a lamer portrayal of Bruce than many fans hoped for.

Speaking of Cliff mythologizing, Tarantino mentioned in an interview this month that the character of Cliff was based on this supposed monster of a bad motherfucker stuntman who worked in Hollywood at the time. According to Tarantino he's legendary among stuntmen and was widely considered one of the most dangerous people who ever got to work in the industry. Part of me wonders if Ryan Gosling's character in Drive might not be based on him too since they're quite similar.

Anyone know exactly who they're talking about?

EDIT: after looking into it it might be Gene LeBell(?) since he was a gifted martial artist and stuntman and exchanged fighting moves with Bruce on the set of the Green Hornet. If it's him Tarantino might have hyped him up a bit much in that interview clip, but still sounds like a pretty interesting and formidable dude.

 

Is the Bruce Lee scene even five minutes long? The movie is close to three hours long.

 

lol that cartoonist is fucking idiot with zero critical thinking skills

 

Obviously movies were a mistake. You can't ask people raised on superhero movies and the Big Bang Theory to think critically about a film for adults.

 

A lot of people also can’t handle morally ambiguous characters. In a Disney or superhero movie sure it’s cool to have Wonder Woman and Black Panther and Captain America be symbols of morality but consuming exclusively movies about morally pure human beings is boring as hell

 

Imagine coming out of this movie and thinking "Brad Pitt is the villain and the Manson family were the victims"

 

lol yeah the defining characteristic of the manson girls is they didn't like the hollywood old guard

 

Man I loved when Brad Pitt killed his naggy bitch wife. I thought "hell yeah this dude is my kind of bro. Now that's what Hollywood USED to be about baby. Once upon a time, madone, back when guys could truly be dudes"