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John Wick 4 star Donnie Yen criticizes Quentin Tarantino’s depiction of Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. A legendary star of Hong Kong action films, Yen has not always gotten a chance to shine in the Hollywood movies he’s signed up for over the years. But John Wick: Chapter 4 gives Yen arguably his greatest American movie role to date with Caine, a blind assassin who is called out of retirement to kill his old friend John Wick.
Having starred in both Hollywood action films like John Wick 4, alongside all his classic Hong Kong movies, indeed gives Yen a unique and valuable perspective on the way American movies handle Asian characters, and there’s one recent film in particular that the star has a huge problem with. Speaking to Variety, Yen brought up Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, which has come under steady fire since its release for the way it depicted Asian legend Bruce Lee, as an example of how American movies get it wrong. Check out what Yen had to say in the space below:
“Everybody is entitled to their opinions. Quentin Tarantino is a very renowned filmmaker, and he’s entitled to his status. And I’m entitled to state my own view. Obviously, he was making fun of Bruce. It was cartoonish.”
Why Tarantino’s Bruce Lee Depiction Is So Controversial
There is arguably no bigger star in the history of Asian cinema than Lee, who burst onto the scene in the 1960s, but sadly passed away at the age of just 32. Lee’s status as an icon is indeed precisely why so many took issue with his depiction in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, in a scene where a fictionalized version of the martial arts legend (Mike Moh) battles Brad Pitt’s stuntman Cliff Booth, and is bested by Booth’s character. Most prominent among critics of the scene is Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee’s daughter, who called out Tarantino in an article written for THR in 2021:
You can imagine by now that I am used to people only seeing one facet of my father and blowing that up into a caricature. That has been happening since shortly after he passed. But usually, somewhere in that caricature is some sort of nugget of love for the man and his work. Not so with Mr. Tarantino.
It’s of course understandable that figures like Yen, who carry on the legacy established by Lee, would be defensive about an arguably mocking depiction of the star like Tarantino’s. Yen indeed has had to fight his own battles against stereotypical Asian depictions in movies, even pushing back against the way his John Wick 4 character was originally conceived, and convincing producers to apply the changes he suggested.
Tarantino for his part has defended his depiction of Lee by claiming Pitt’s Booth used a dirty trick, implying that this should lessen the offense taken by Lee’s defenders, and by citing sources who claim the real Lee treated stuntmen with the same disrespect his Lee shows toward Pitt’s character in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. It’s unlikely that this defense would move Yen however, as he made it clear he sees Tarantino’s depiction as mocking and cartoonish, with no sense of reality.
Source: Variety
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