Bruce Lee was ‘kind of arrogant’, says Quentin Tarantino after ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ criticism
- Director says Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth ‘is a fictional character so he could beat Bruce Lee up’
- ‘If people are saying, “Well he never said he could beat up Muhammad Ali”, well, yeah he did. All right?’
Quentin Tarantino has finally waded into the row surrounding his depiction of Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Fans of the martial arts icon are upset over the outcome of a fight between actor Mike Moh’s Lee and Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt.
Booth challenges Lee to a best of two-out-of-three rounds fight on the set of 1960s ABC television hit, The Green Hornet, which helped Lee get a foot in the door in Hollywood.
“Could Cliff beat up Bruce Lee? Brad would not be able to beat up Bruce Lee, but Cliff maybe could,” Tarantino said at the film’s Moscow press conference last week.
Lee easily knocks Booth down with a flying kick in the first “round” in front of a bunch of watching extras and stunt men. Booth dodges the same move in the second “round”, catching Lee and throwing him on the on-set director’s wife’s car door.
