Shut up or apologise: Bruce Lee's daughter Shannon Lee to Quentin Tarantino

Los Angeles: Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee has shot back at filmmaker Quentin Tarantino over his recent comments that the martial arts legend was an “arrogant guy” in real life.

Tarantino has come under fire for Lee’s portrayal in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, which according to many people, including Lee’s protege Dan Inosanto and daughter Shannon, paints the late actor as an “arrogant a**hole who was full of hot air”.

Both Inosanto and Shannon have criticised a fight scene in the film involving Lee and Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth.

Talking to Variety, Shannon said, “He could shut up about it. That would be really nice. Or he could apologize or he could say, ‘I don’t really know what Bruce Lee was like. I just wrote it for my movie. But that shouldn’t be taken as how he really was.'”

Her statement was in response to the comments made by Tarantino at a press conference in Moscow where he finally addressed the controversy.

“Bruce Lee was kind of an arrogant guy. The way he was talking, I didn’t just make a lot of that up. I heard him say things like that to that effect. If people are saying, ‘Well he never said he could beat up Mohammad Ali,’ well yeah he did. Alright?

“Not only did he say that but his wife, Linda Lee, said that in her first biography I ever read. She absolutely said that,” the filmmaker said.
Shannon said her father’s confidence should not be mistaken as his arrogance.

“(Tarantino) can portray Bruce Lee however he wanted to, and he did. But it’s a little disingenuous for him to say, ‘Well, this is how he was, but this is a fictional movie, so don’t worry too much about it’,” she added.