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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

Enter the Dragon was playing a theater near me recently, and for some reason never having seen a single Bruce Lee film, I figured I'd check it out. It was awesome and I ended up down a rabbit hole of reading about Bruce's life and accomplishments. There are some really great interviews with him on YouTube too.

It's really irritating that the first thing many younger people will think about Bruce Lee is the near-libelous portrayal of him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

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Interesting. I never made that connection. I'm not a younger person, but never had any interest in Bruce Lee movies. I've seen a few, it's just not my cup of tea.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a real stinker of a film, IMO. I'd be highly surprised if young people used it as a benchmark of much. I didn't even remember "he" was in it until this comment.

Yeah I’m not a fan of Tarantino. My worry is that the most recent cultural work featuring Lee is Hollywood and that’s what younger people will associate him with. We could really use a new biopic or something that involves his ideas.

I don't think people will associate the depiction of a someone in that movie to any actual people, given that the movie is a completely fictitious rewrite of a real event (i.e. Tate murders).

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a stinker... that's a take.

Movie wad fantastic. The Bruce Lee scene is fucking hilarious also.

Meh. I got bored and walked out to be honest. We all have our own tastes.

The phenomenon of walking out of a show I paid to watch, even if I'm not enjoying that much is so alien to me. The first thought I might have is "what am I missing", and throughout I'll be trying to either find something good in it or start joking about it in my head. Maybe it'll turn good, maybe it'll be so bad it's good. Maybe the way they tell the story is bad but I still want to know how the story ends. I feel like I have so many reasons to stay there that it hasn't ever ocurred to walk out. Do you walk out of stuff often?

I don't watch enough movies in a theater to measure walk outs there (though I would have walked out of the latest Avatar had I not been there with my son; so boring and long...), but I do stop maybe 1/5 novels without finishing and maybe 1/20 movies without finishing them. There's more interesting stuff I could be doing with my time, and if they are completely not my taste, I'd rather be ding those things.

Walked out once of a movie people convinced me to go to. I found it childish and boring, kept thinking it is a nice sunny weather outside, what am I doing wasting my life in this darkness watching this commercial crap. It felt great being outside. I wish I had used my time similarly wisely in the years that followed :)

Not him but I have video games I didn't complete and books I stop reading midway. You already wasted your money, why compound the loss further by wasting your time on things you don’t care for.

If I’m falling asleep during a movie or I’ve watched 50% and have no idea what’s happening, I don’t much see the point in staying :)

You're just a victim of the sunk-cost fallacy.

Come on, Titanic wasn't that bad. :)

Maybe not... but your joke on the other hand... ;)

I completely agree. I posted it in a moment of weakness. Undoubtedly "inspired" by recently watching [0] :)

[0] https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/A_Flight_to_Remember

I've done this once in 30+ years. Little Nicky was a terrible movie, no clue what Adam Sandler was thinking with that one.

I watched it at home, so I didn't walk out technically, but I also turned off "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". The only movies I've physically walked out of have been "The Departed" and "Tree of Life". I don't think it's a big deal to bail on something you're not enjoying, but have given a best effort to get into.

When you start consistently walking out of Oscar nominated or winning films I know immediately your opinion on films is probably not worth much.

I really wouldn't go that far. Oscar nominations are industry nominated movies. There's no real bar of quality aside from what the committee deems worthwhile. The committee famously doesn't care about animated movies, so the generally the only animated films that wins Oscars are Disney films, despite strong international presence.

Time is worth more than money. It could turn around, but it could also not, and if it doesn't, you're not getting those two hours of your life back. You have a very limited amount of time allotted to you on Earth, choose what you do with it wisely. You'll get more money, you won't get more time.

I once walked out of a picture, for Ermanno Olmi's Il mestiere delle armi (The Profession of Arms). I was not ready for what I later discovered was a masterpiece about the last days of Giovanni Dalle Bande Nere. If you are interested in the life of the most famous " Capitano di Ventura " of the Renaissance, I recommend the magisterial biography of Giovanni Dalle Bande Nere written by Cesare Marchi.

The scene was funny but I've never heard anyone who knew him describe him as that sort of pompous douchebag. It's a little defamatory.

Isn't the whole scene like a memory from an unreliable witness, who (gasp) didn't like Bruce Lee? From that point of view it makes perfect sense.

I thought it was hilarious myself, and however "correct" or not did establish his character as completely badass.

Its art, to each their own. Its also a Tarantino film so its entirely his interpretation and lens of film into what he wanted to produce. I've watched a few interviews with him about that film and others and he is very meticulous about the content down to certain words in lines, no ad-libbing type of meticulous. I like some of his work and some of it I don't.

I certainly hope young people understand not to think of portrayals of real people in works of art+semi-fiction aren't a good representation to bench anything on.

> I certainly hope young people understand not to think of portrayals of real people in works of art+semi-fiction aren't a good representation to bench anything on.

Tarantino's style is so distinctive, and basically never grounded in reality.

Regardless of whether the film is to one's tastes or not, it would be a pretty grave error to encounter a character in a Tarantino film and mistake the performance as an accurate representation of any real world person.

Bruce Lee has been worshipped non stop for 50 years. His legacy can take one dream sequence.

> ...near-libelous portrayal of him

Is it libelous or true? Are you assuming?

You have to realize this is a person who was mythologized. A person who millions believe is the best fighter ever despite never having been put to the test. A great person who accomplished a lot, but reality never quite matches up with perception of the masses.

From what I’ve read online, Lee never claimed he could beat Muhammad Ali, as he does in the film. In fact he said the opposite.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/bruce-lee-thought-muhammad-ali-...

That seems pretty misleading to me.

Near-libelous is fitting. I'm a Bruce fanatic since childhood and there are a lot of personal accounts of Bruce and they never painted him as the guy in Tarantino's movie. I love Tarantino but that was bad. Tarantino likes to play with his characters but in this case Bruce was a real person and a hero to a generation(s). That was unfair to do that to a real person for some comedy.

> Bruce fanatic since childhood

You've been fed a steady diet of martyr god.

>There are some really great interviews with him on YouTube too.

I can search, but can you recommend any?

I enjoyed this one: https://youtu.be/uk1lzkH-e4U

Thanks

Don't think you can libel the dead.

tarantino hates asian men and has an asian female fetish. look through the history of his movies. he's the typical 80s/90s hollywood producer type that relentlessly trashed on asians in every fucking way/every chance possible.

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