How ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ should have ended … with Bruce Lee making more than a cameo appearance
- Quentin Tarantino’s Hollywood blockbuster doesn’t sit well with Bruce Lee fans in one of the most talked about scenes in years
- Here’s an alternate ending with the martial arts superstar involved that would make things right for upset moviegoers
In Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, there’s a scene where Bruce Lee, played by Jason Scott Lee, is watching a movie in a cinema with his future wife, Linda Emery, and Lee is squirming in his seat as laughter bellows around him.
Lee and Emery are watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the late Mickey Rooney is playing a clumsy Asian whose exaggerated Japanese accent, false teeth and mannerisms leaves the future martial arts superstar upset at Rooney’s stereotypical depiction of a Japanese man. The “Charlie Chan” type of character played by non-Asians, in this case Hollywood legend Rooney, mocks Asians and Asian culture.
More than 50 years later, Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon, found herself sitting uncomfortably in a cinema watching Hollywood’s much-hyped Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood. She was curious to see how acclaimed writer/director Quentin Tarantino would portray her dad after so much talk about THAT scene many fans aren’t happy about.
Shannon left the cinema shaking her head (and possibly fist) at how ludicrous and twisted Tarantino portrays Bruce Lee, played by Mike Moh. In Shannon’s own words, the scene made her late father look like an “arrogant a*******”.
While the movie itself was fine and was in the same formula of most of Tarantino’s “what if” movies fans still enjoy, Shannon Lee was not impressed. Most Bruce Lee fans would probably stand by her on this one.
In the movie (**SPOILERS AHEAD**), Brad Pitt’s tougher-than-nails stuntman character Cliff Booth gets into a physical altercation with Bruce Lee in a best-of-three-rounds fight on the set of the TV show The Green Hornet.
Lee knocks Booth down in the “first round” with a flying kick which Booth compliments as “not bad”, but Booth grabs Lee and throws him into the side of a car, badly denting the door in the second round. The third round is interrupted by a woman from the film crew who yells at the pair for causing a ruckus. The movie implies Booth would have beaten Lee had the fight gone on longer. This is where the problem lies. Lee was also made to look like a loud mouth, arrogant troublemaker.
First of all, Lee would have never initiated a challenge on anyone on a set (not after the age of 18, anyway). Lee himself was challenged many times by unsavoury characters when he became a household name through his martial arts movies. There’s a famous story that a film extra had challenged him to a fight on the set of Enter the Dragon and the deluded fellow got his comeuppance (and a few missing teeth).
Back to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Shannon couldn’t understand why Tarantino would portray her father as a person who was spoiling for a fight when he never had anything to prove as a martial artist.
“I understand they want to make the Brad Pitt character this super bad a** 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,” Shannon Lee, who was not consulted by Tarantino for the film, told entertainment news website The Wrap.
“He [Lee] comes across as an arrogant a****** who was full of hot air,” she said. “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.”
Shannon said the scene went against everything her father had stood for and it was an insult to Bruce Lee fans. She’s right. The scene was disturbing to watch and it was an insult to Bruce Lee fans.
Shannon heads the Bruce Lee foundation and estate and is executive producer on the HBO series Warrior, which is based on her father’s writings. Bruce Lee didn’t deserve this, nor his daughter or surviving wife.
So how could Tarantino have made the movie right? He could have kept that original fight scene (but toned down on Lee’s cockiness). Lee (or Moh) only has a minor role in the movie, but he could have played a bigger part and even featured in the film’s finale.
The ending could go something like this: Bruce Lee is looking for Booth to complete “unfinished business” with his chum and martial arts student, Steve McQueen, a sports car enthusiast (they were buddies in real life). They arrive at film director Roman Polanski’s residence but are unwittingly caught up in the violent and bloody ending, which Tarantino does well in the actual movie.
Now Lee, with the help of Pitt and even Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) could have beaten up the Manson kids (members of mass murderer Charles Manson’s deadly cult) together.
Instead of having a few Manson kids, there could have been more crazies. And to pay homage to Lee’s movies, he could have even jumped over Pitt’s attacking pit bull just like he did when he avoided the German shepherd in the final fight scene of The Big Boss.
If the Hollywood finale was going to be as wacky as it was in the movie, why not go the extra mile – like putting Bruce Lee in the final scene?
We hear Tarantino will be directing his “last” movie before he retires and it’s reportedly the latest of the Star Trek franchise. It has a futuristic setting and it’s pure fantasy – right up Tarantino’s alley. But we shudder to think what his devious mind would have Mr Spock portrayed as. Don’t expect the half Vulcan to utter his quizzical “highly illogical” with raised eyebrows in this one.
