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Quentin Tarantino finally responds to criticism of his portrayal of Bruce Lee in ‘Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.’
Let’s fact check his defense… (1/11)
Let’s fact check his defense… (1/11)
TARANTINO: “His wife, Linda Lee, said that [Bruce could beat up Muhammad Ali] in her first biography, ‘Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew.’” (2/11)
WRONG: Linda was quoting a TV critic. “Even the most scathing critics admitted that Bruce’s gungfu was sensational. One critic wrote: ‘Those who watched him would bet on Lee to render Cassius Clay senseless if they were put in a room and told that anything goes.” (pg. 88) (3/11)
TARANTINO: “Bruce Lee said that [he could beat up Muhammad Ali].” (4/11)
WRONG: Bruce was obsessed with Ali, studying all Ali’s fights in detail. He frequently imagined fighting Ali. Bruce once told Bolo Yeung: “Everybody says I must fight Ali someday. I’m studying every move he makes. I’m getting to know how he thinks and moves.” (5/11)
BUT when asked directly by John Saxon if he could beat Ali, Bruce replied, “Look at my hand. That’s a little Chinese hand. He’d kill me.” (Robert Clouse, ‘Bruce Lee: The Biography,’ pg. 112) (6/11)
TARANTINO: “Cliff [Brad Pitt] is a Green Beret. He has killed many, many men in WWII in hand-to-hand combat.”
WRONG: The Green Berets were not founded until 1952. Maybe Quentin meant the Operational Group of the OSS. (7/11)
WRONG: The Green Berets were not founded until 1952. Maybe Quentin meant the Operational Group of the OSS. (7/11)
WRONG: OSS officers didn’t beat Nazis to death with their hands. Like all soldiers, they used their rifles first, pistols second, and knives when they ran out of bullets. WWII wasn’t ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.’ (8/11)
TARANTINO: “If Cliff and Bruce were fighting in the jungles of the Philippines in a hand-to-hand combat fight, Cliff would kill him.” (9/11)
WRONG: First, they were fighting on a Hollywood backlot, not an Asian jungle. Second, it takes years of relentless training to master unarmed combat. Soldiers are rarely experts, because it forms only a small portion of their training. (10/11)
Maybe fictional Cliff could beat up Bruce Lee—he wasn’t invincible—but not because 20 years earlier he shot a bunch of Japanese soldiers. (11/11)
