As With Matt Damon in 'The Great Wall,' New Bruce Lee Biopic Accused of ‘Whitewashing’

Fergus Ryan | Oct 11, 2016 11:30 am | 5 comments | 3837 reads

This post comes courtesy of our content partners at China Film Insider.

A new biopic of legendary martial arts star Bruce Lee has come under fire from Lee’s daughter and fans who are accusing it of “whitewashing” and burying his legacy.

Birth of the Dragon (龙之诞生, watch the trailer here), which premiered recently at the Toronto Film Festival, follows the kung fu star’s early years in the US and depicts his controversial fight with master Wong Jack Man in 1964.

But IMDb users who say they have seen the film protest the film’s emphasis on the Caucasian character mastering martial arts and dating an Asian girl is offensive.

While Hong Kong-born American actor Philip Ng (伍允龍) plays Bruce Lee, and China actor Xia Yu (夏雨) plays Wong Jack Man, many fans have expressed concern that they get less screen time than American actor Billy Magnussen, who plays Lee’s fictional friend Steve McKee.

One user said that Birth of the Dragon “reduces Bruce Lee to a side character in his own story to force a white guy into the lead,” while another says that the film “serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes regarding Asian women, men, and the culture.”

Lee’s daughter Shannon, whose Bruce Lee Entertainment is spearheading a rival biopic about her father, took to Instagram on Friday to lodge her own protest calling the film “a travesty on many levels.”

“I think this film is a step backward for Asians in film not to mention that the portrayal of Bruce Lee is inaccurate and insulting,” Lee wrote. “I am disappointed that such a project would be funded and produced.”

Director George Nolfi likened the role of the Steve McKee character to the narrator in The Great Gatsby, in an interview with Deadline in September.

“The reality is, Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man did not know each other for a long period before the fight and they weren’t heavily involved with each other after the fight,” Nolfi said.

“From a narrative standpoint, you needed eyes on the story that would allow you to have a run up to the fight and … I don’t want to spoil what happens after the fight ... but you needed that to get to our third act.”

The Chinese-American co-production obtained its entire USD 31 million production budget from China’s Kylin Pictures, which is owned and led by well-known Chinese producer Pang Hong.

The furor follows a number of recent cases of alleged “whitewashing” in movies including Scarlett Johansson’s casting in a remake of the Japanese anime classic Ghost in the Shell, Tilda Swinton’s casting in Doctor Strange, along with Matt Damon’s starring turn in the upcoming The Great Wall. Screencrush reports that on Saturday, when asked about his part in The Great Wall and the accusations of whitewashing, Damon responded by saying "It was a "f*cking bummer."

Earlier this week Disney vowed to cast a Chinese female actor in the lead of their upcoming live-action remake of Mulan.

Images: flixist.com, Instagram

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emc2's picture emc2 Submitted by Guest on Tue, 10/18/2016 - 15:53

ZOEM wrote:

I have no idea what you are talking about. Bruce Lee was a martial artist and an actor. Yes, film fights are in fact choreography, though Bruce was known to improvise in these scenes and would allow the actor playing an opponent to try their best moves and he'd adapt around it. They were films, not real fights. However, unlike most actors who play martial artists, he truly was one, and was a streetfighter with a near flawless match record. He even developed his own martial art, which in many ways served as inspiration for modern MMA. Bruce didn't need stunt doubles. He wasn't a 'druggy', he died from an allergic reaction to a painkiller he took for a headache. He was actually very health conscious, having a physical routine that was pretty extreme to say the least, and ate a really healthy diet. He was very interested in taking care of his body. Hollywood didn't need to popularize him - he was the biggest action star in Asia, which is what allowed him the success to finally be offered an opportunity in Hollywood to make a film. That movie broke boundaries and allowed for the first Asian hero in Hollywood films. As for his family, they weren't anywhere near as business savvy as most entertainment families like the Presley estate for example. The family didn't copywrite his image and name soon enough and gave most of his belongings to friends and students, not realizing what a legend he was truly going to evolve into. They have a lot less money as a result.

What I find to be very strange is that Bruce Lee was known for his almost obbsesive attention to his health. At least that is what we read in every thing written about him and what he claimed about himself. Yet, this same guy decided to carelessly pop a couple of prescription pain killers that his mistress had sitting around her place. Does someone as health conscious as Bruce Lee claimed he was, turn to manufactured pain killers to relieve a headache? No. But druggies do. And if he was as health conscious as everyone has been led to believe, then why did he have such a severe headache in the first place...so severe that he thought he needed such powerful painkillers to relieve. People that are not druggies usually just pop a couple of asprin...no harm done, but Mr. health conscious decides to go for the powerful stuff. Perhaps Bruce Lee was on the tail end of a hangover and this was his normal remedy he used for getting sober again, except this time he did not have his bag of drugs with him. OOPS!!

emc2's picture emc2 Submitted by Guest on Tue, 10/11/2016 - 22:23

Bruce Lee was not so great. He was an actor...pure and simple. His martial arts skills and fight scenes (or what should be more accurately described as coordinated dance scenes, because that is essentially what all these types of scenes are anyway) like all Hollywood actors, were mostly embelloshed by camera tricks and stunt doubles. Bruce Lee ended up as a druggy dying from a drug over dose in the bed the woman that he was having an extra-marital affair with. In fact, Bruce Lee was so desperate for a hit at that time that he tried to get high on the prescription drugs of his Tiawanese mistress. Bruce Lee is only great because Hollywood popularized him and his family is still riding on the financial back of that popularity. Certainy not a man that deserves the accolades for greatness that he has been getting for so many years now.

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