The Quentin Tarantino discourse isn’t great right now. Following his disparaging remarks about Bruce Lee in the recent podcast conversation he had on the Joe Rogan show about his “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” novelization and his whole career, people are angry and upset. The short version: you’ll remember upon the time of the release, people complained about the treatment of Lee in Tarantino’s film, depicting him as cocky and arrogant. He also gets his ass nearly kicked by the film’s fictional character Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Well, in this recent Joe Rogan podcast, Tarantino slammed Lee again, though he did suggest that anyone could “suck a d*ck,” and the only people who might have legitimate complaints are the Lee family.
Well, well, well, shortly after that, Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee did respond with an op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter, titled, “Shannon Lee: Does Quentin Tarantino Hate Bruce Lee? Or Does It Just Help Sell Books?.”
But one wonders if Shannon Lee or anyone actually listened to the entire three-hour podcast because Tarantino went off and hard on Bruce Lee’s wife, Linda Lee, closer to the end of the podcast, making all kinds of disparaging remarks about her, Lee’s mistress, and the fact that she’s a “f*cking liar” (Shannon Lee does not mention this at all in her op-ed).
Despite his earlier remarks about Bruce Lee (doubling down on the idea he was arrogant), Tarantino got even angrier when it came to what he describes as a great myth: that Bruce Lee came up with the idea for the 1970s “Kung Fu” TV series, and that idea was stolen by Warner Bros., who decided to put David Carradine in the role instead. Rogan asks, “Kung Fu” was originally supposed to star Bruce Lee, right? The backstory is the “Kung Fu Vs. [Cinemax’s] “Warrior” debate. Long story short, it was widely believed among fans (thanks to the 1993 biopic “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” and a 1978 biography about Lee that his widow Linda Lee wrote) that “Warrior” was stolen from Lee and turned into “Kung Fu,” a similar series that became a massive hit.
“No, it wasn’t. It’s a complete lie,” Tarantino said, attacking Lee’s widow Linda Lee in his rant. “Linda Lee has just completely lied about that in that book she wrote, ‘Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew.’ The man, only she knew, well, as Betty Ting Pei, his mistress whose bed he died in probably knew him a little bit too.”
“She wrote this biography, which was the first biography I’d ever read,” he continued. “In the book, she claims, that Bruce had written this idea for a TV show called ‘The Warrior’ and that Warner Bros. read the ‘Warrior’ and ripped it off. Then they wrote ‘Kung-Fu, and they read Bruce Lee’s [version] but decided not to use him cause they’re racist, and boom, they cast David Carradine. ‘Kung Fu’ was created by Ed Spielman [editor’s note: Tarantino mistakenly names him Ed Abramson throughout]. Well, this is pretty clear, Ed Spielman either ripped off Bruce Lee’s treatment for ‘The Warrior,’ or he didn’t. Either he created Kwai Chang Caine, or Bruce Lee did. He’s either guilty of plagiarism or he’s not. Well, he’s not. He never saw this ‘Warrior’ thing.”
“I talked to the author of ‘Bruce Lee [A Life]’, Matthew Polley,” Tarantino further explained. “He said, ‘When I called Ed [Spielman] up, he was like ‘Oh my god,’ it was the phone call he had been waiting forty years for.’ Because he’s had to put up with this [allegation of plagiarism] all this time. He had all the information, he had all the documentation of how he wrote the script and how he came up with Kwai Chang Caine. He wrote that script.”
Tarantino went on to say that if it was Warner Bros was the one at fault, the Lee family would have easily sued. “If that were true…if I were the Lee family, I’d be mad at Warner Bros., wouldn’t you? To rip me off so bad? Who does Bruce Lee do his first film with, ‘Enter The Dragon?’ Warner Bros!”
“They didn’t work out some money thing!” Tarantino protested when Rogan brought it up as a possibility about what happened between the action star and the studio. “Why isn’t Linda Lee talking about that? Not only that, her book is published by Warner Books! But the reality is this and it’s Matthew Polley’s book. Not only did Bruce Lee not write the ‘Warrior’ before ‘Kung Fu’ came about, he wrote it afterward. He wrote it after he had read the Kung Fu script.”
Tarantino says that Bruce Lee tried out for the “Kung Fu” part but they “didn’t use him because they didn’t understand him when he talked,” and in fact, nearly charged Lee with the reverse and ripping off “Kung Fu” with his “Warrior” idea. “He took elements from the Ed [Spielman] ‘Kung Fu’ script and put it in the ‘Warrior,’ Tarantino alleged. “Polley’s book even says, ‘Well, Bruce had a Hong-Kong idea of plagiarism which is everything is takable as long as you can take it.”
The filmmaker retold Linda Lee’s allegation about Warner Bros. reportedly stealing the story from Bruce Lee and he said, “That’s a complete lie.” The filmmaker said that the story came up again in “that ‘Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story‘ movie with Jason Lee,’ and that Ed Spielman thought it was now the perfect time to sue for defamation, but then decided against it when Brandon Lee died (“OK, woman, I’ve got you now, I’ve been putting up with this shit for 20 years,” Tarantino said).
“What would be really funny,” Tarantino said with a laugh, “is if Ed [Spielman], who wrote ‘Kung Fu,’ and had this lie put out about him forever, if he sued them [Linda Lee is a producer on ‘Warrior’] for plagiarism.”
Even Joe Rogan is taken aback and suggests this story is wild and controversial, seemingly knowing it will blow up on social media, to which the filmmaker responds, “Look, I’m not putting down Bruce Lee,” Tarantino said seemingly defending his take, “I’m saying his wife is a liar. His widow is a fucking liar. She lied about that.”
Rogan, seemingly trying to defuse the situation, posits— What if Bruce Lee himself lied to his wife and thus she understood the story as was told in her book and was being honest about what she was told? “Well, you can say she didn’t know, but she’s the one writing a fucking book,” he protested. “I guess that’s possible but when you write it in a book you take responsibility. Is your husband a loudmouth? Does he say a bunch of shit that’s not true?”
“Yikes, this is some heavy shit for Bruce Lee fans,” Rogan says nearly wincing while looking at his producer. Why get this angry about a story that was alleged back in 1978 and is likely water under the bridge for everyone involved? No clue. Now, I’m not really sure how the discourse blew up around this story, but the much more damaging parts of the story were never discussed or unpacked, but it’s all right there if you want to dig into the podcast below.
