Bruce Lee documentary director talks about "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood": Don't make up his story

The latest documentary about Bruce Lee, "Be Water" directed by Bao Ruan, was launched on ESPN on June 7. The film attempts to restore Bruce Lee's glorious life by recording his childhood, adolescence, marriage and parenting experiences.

The last time we saw Bruce Lee on the big screen was in Quentin Tarantino's film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Quentin portrayed Bruce Lee as an "arrogant" character, which caused controversy. Recently, director Bao Ruan was interviewed by foreign media and talked about his views on this matter. He said that he was "very torn". On the one hand, he did not want to censor the content of the film, but on the other hand, he felt that artists needed to think about how to portray real people.

Bruce Lee's image in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

“As a filmmaker, I’m not going to tell other filmmakers what kind of films they should make or self-censor in any way,” Bao said. “My parents are from Vietnam, and there’s still a lot of censorship in film and culture there. So, I’m not going to make conclusions from that. That’s obviously Quentin’s version of Bruce Lee, and ours is very different. This is a documentary. It’s a more humane take on Bruce Lee as a whole. I think that’s part of the larger conversation we need to have as artists about how we decide to portray — especially real people, and what our responsibility is. ”

Bao Nguyen believes that Quentin's intentions are good, but he has created a fictional image of Bruce Lee on the big screen, which may mislead the public and fail to fulfill his responsibility as an artist. "Everyone has their own set of responsibilities and their own understanding of what they need to express. So I want to know where the source is... As you said, Quentin Tarantino is a big advocate of Asian films and Bruce Lee, and I think his intentions are good. But sometimes we have to think about the responsibilities we have to shoulder when expressing, especially the characters of people of color on the screen."

Bruce Lee documentary "Like Water" Vietnamese director Bao Nguyen

"If we look at it in the context of mainstream Hollywood movies, the 2019 version of Bruce Lee is a milestone for Asian Americans. So, I think it's important to consider the context, but I never criticized his choices as a filmmaker, his artistic choices, but we have to portray a more authentic story of Bruce Lee, rather than a fictional version. "