Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee seems to be having (another) moment.

It's 1974, and suddenly the nation's coffee tables are missing two legs...

The South China Morning Post reports that the Hong Kong protesters are consciously heeding Lee’s oracular advice: “Be water, my friend.”*

Quartz picked up on this and devoted yesterday’s daily bulletin to Lee. It’s quite entertaining and typically chock-full of interesting tangential links. Even this 70s kid** who kung-fued up a storm with everybody else in the schoolyard picked up some historical tidbits hitherto unknown.

Lee’s legacy is front-and-centre for another reason, of course: Quentin Tarantino’s brief, less-than-woke Bruce Lee vs. Cliff Booth skit, in Once Upon a Time...  in Hollywood.

It’s not for me to answer the racism charge, but Walter Chaw’s take on the scene strikes me as remarkably generous.*** Full disclosure: there were maybe a dozen of us at the afternoon matinee I caught, and nobody laughed at Lee’s comeuppance. Which raises another reason why I dislike the film — it is grievously low on giggles.****

As for the Lee family’s complaint that Tarantino has supplied us with a caricature of the man — it’s a fair enough assessment. In fact everyone in this movie is a caricature — doe-eyed Sharon Tate, resentful out-played-player Steve McQueen, hustler Marvin Schwarz, etc. As for Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), it’s hard to locate whether it’s a caricature of a sixties swaggering stunt-man, or of the actor who’s portraying him. The only character who (momentarily) slips the bonds of caricature is Rick Dalton (DiCaprio), a Hollywood has-been who rediscovers his soul, such as it is, when he finally settles down, digs deep, and does the work he’s getting paid to do. Once that’s out of the way, it’s back to caricature for him, too. Why should “Bruce Lee,” who appears only for a few minutes, be exempt from this treatment?

Wait — did I just defend Tarantino?

*My friend John Longhurst points out an element to the protests unremarked upon by MSM: protesters are singing a Christian praise anthem from the 70s.

**I never owned the poster, but I had plenty of friends who did. They also bought the Lee bio-pulps that seemed to show up in the drugstore magazine stand every month or so.

***Turns out there was indeed a stunt-man/Bruce Lee dust-up that Lee conceded. And yes: Lee could trash-talk with the best of them.

****Still in the interest of full disclosure: I will admit the prolonged agony of Dalton’s well-earned pre-shoot hangover had me in stitches. What can I say? I’m a fool for slapstick.