Raconteur director Quentin Tarantino is making the rounds promoting the novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the book that goes along with his movie. 

Fans of the movie will remember that when it came out, Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee, took umbrage with the way Tarantino portrayed her father. In the movie, Lee is cocky, not gun-shy, and also gets his butt kicked by the character Cliff Booth. 


While on the Joe Rogan Podcast, Tarantino addressed the controversy directly and talked a little about Lee's legacy. 

Aside from the crass reference, Tarantino backs up the way he portrayed Lee in the movie with anecdotes from books about Lee and the stories of how he treated American stuntmen while on the Green Hornet. Tarantino stayed the course on his argument, not backing down with the character, portrayal, or the ideas that went into creating that character. 

Tarantino finished with a defense of Cliff and his prowess as a fighter, saying he was an anticipatory fighter who wouldn't have stood a chance in a martial arts tournament. But because they were on the backlot, Cliff was able to surprise Lee and use his hubris against him.

In a passage in the book, the character of Bruce Lee sees that Cliff uses military-style hand-to-hand combat and knows he's facing a killer

Let us know what you think in the comments.