Sensei Says | 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*******”.
