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Quentin Tarantino, director of Pulp Fiction and more recently Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood, generated controversy when he said that Asian American actor and martial arts legend Bruce Lee had nothing but disrespect for American stuntmen. When speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast in late June 2021, Tarantino addressed criticism of how Lee was portrayed in his film Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood. In one scene depicting the filming of the television show The Green Hornet, a stuntman played by Brad Pitt beats an arrogant Lee played by Mike Moh, in a fight. Critics, including Lee’s own daughter, who spoke up in 2019, said this portrayal of Lee was inaccurate. Tarantino defended his decision, saying that in real life, the stuntmen hated Lee on the set of that television show. He said: Tarantino also cited writer Matthew Polly, who wrote Bruce Lee: A Life, as a source for this information. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvOEj00LB8 Many took umbrage over the statement that Lee had nothing but disrespect for American stuntmen, suggesting that it implied that Lee was a foreigner, and Tarantino was erasing Lee’s American identity. Lee was indeed an American citizen. He was born on Nov. 27, 1940, in San Francisco, to Chinese parents who were there on a temporary work visa. His father was a Cantonese opera singer and actor, who performed at the Mandarin Theater, according to documents obtained from the National Archives at San Francisco. Before they moved back to Hong Kong, his parents wanted to ensure that he would be able to return to the country later on if he chose to do so, and filed for a Return Certification Application. In an interview with the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the U.S. Department of Justice, obtained by the National Archives in San Francisco, when asked why he wanted to have his American-born son’s status established Lee’s father said, I thought it would be a good thing since he was born here so that he could come back here to study English. Lee’s parents had included an infant photo of Lee in the application, so the officer suggested that they get their son’s fingerprints taken to identify himself should he wish to return to this country at a later date, saying it would be a better method of identification than an infant photograph. Lee’s father added that he intended to submit a photograph of his son every few years to the American Consulate in Hong Kong. Their interview transcripts and application are available through the National Archives at San Francisco: Lee grew up in Hong Kong, and returned to the U.S. around the time he turned 18 years old. Tarantino’s implication that Lee himself was not American was not the only thing he got wrong. Polly tweeted a response to Tarantino’s comments, saying his book never stated that Lee disrespected stuntmen. Gene LeBell, a real life stuntman who actually did lock horns with Lee on the set of The Green Hornet told a very different story in an interview with OZY: They ended up training together, and Lee incorporated grappling moves into his onscreen fighting. The article concluded that LeBell was already an accomplished martial artist in his own right, it took a high level of skill to take on Lee, and the scene Tarantino made with Pitt and Moh sold both the stuntman and the actor short.
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