Photo: Getty
She's trying to protect her fathers legacy.
By Kaitlin Kaiser — Written on Aug 01, 2019
Shannon Lee, born April 19, 1969, is the daughter of Bruce and Linda Lee. Bruce Lee was a major film star known for his Martial Arts skills and movies. Her father died when she was only four-years-old. Recently she has been all over the headlines, due to what she calls inaccuracies in the way her father is portrayed in the newest Quentin Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. This has everyone asking who is Shannon Lee?
1. She studied Martial Arts
Just like her father, Shannon Lee studied Martial Arts. She studied Jeet Kune Do, a Martial Art form created by her father on July 9th, 1967. She was taught by her father's student and protege, Richard Bustillo. Her more focused studies started in the early 1990's when she decided she wanted to get into action movies. She started training in Taekwondo under Dung Doa Liang and Washu under Eric Chen.
2. She followed in her father's footsteps
Martial Arts isn't the only thing she and her father have in common. She also took up acting in the early 1990's. She actually made her acting debut in her father's 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story where she was credited as Party Singer. She was never as successful as her father, as she only did a few guest spots on TV shows and a few direct to video movies. She seems to have left acting all together around 2012. Now she is the president of the Bruce Lee Foundation and works as a producer for a lot of Bruce Lee inspired film and television shows.
3. President of the Bruce Lee Foundation
The Bruce Lee Foundation is a non-profit organization that stands to honor the memory and legacy of the famed Martial Artist. They offer different camps for children and the underprivileged, as well as raising money to provide scholarships to exceptional college hopefuls. Camp Bruce Lee is a camp where its participants learn about Bruce Lee, his history and his teachings. They "discover his messages on building confidence and unlimited potential." Another camp they offer is called Little Dragons, which is focused on underprivileged youth and provides martial arts training and confidence skills to children with a passion for Martial Arts who would not otherwise be able to afford training.
Shannon Lee started the foundation in 2002 with her mother Linda Lee Caldwell, with the hope to "share the art and philosophy of Bruce Lee with the world for generations to come".
4. Angry with her fathers portrayal in the film.
After seeing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Shannon Lee became very vocal about her feelings about her father's portrayal in the film. She said: "He comes across as an arrogant a**hole who was full of hot air... and not someone who had to fight triple as hard as any of those people did to accomplish what was naturally given to so many others." She also said that it made her uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at her father.
She said that she understands that the over the top portrayal could have been Tarantino's way of trying to put the Hollywood stereotyping of Bruce Lee on display. In Shannon Lee's opinion though — it didn't come off that way. She said "...they didn't need to treat him in the way that white Hollywood did when he was alive".
5. Historical inaccuracies
Shannon has stated that historically, her father hated conflict. He did not believe in fighting outside of Martial Arts. The scene where Mike Moh (as Bruce Lee) and Brad Pitt (as Cliff Booth) engage in a fist fight would never have happened according to Lee. Author of Bruce Lee: A Life Matthew Polly has also taken issue with the movie saying: "Bruce revered Mohammed Ali. He never trashed talked him in real life. Bruce never used jumping kicks in an actual fight."
6. Her thoughts on Mike Moh
Mike Moh, the actor who played Bruce Lee, is not at fault in Lee's eyes. She said that she believes Moh was directed to be a caricature of her late father. In review of his performance she said that Moh actually accurately depicted her father's voice and mannerisms. Moh said of Bruce Lee: "...he's a big personality and I love his personality; I credit his ability to straddle confidence and cockiness as something that I strived for as a young kid who was kind of unsure of how I fit in growing up in the Midwest." He also said that he was nervous to play this version of Lee stating that: "I'm not going to tell you what the original script had exactly, but when I read it, I was so conflicted because he’s my hero — Bruce in my mind was literally a God. He wasn't a person to me, he was a superhero. And I think that's how most people view Bruce".
Kaitlin Kaiser is a writer who writes about love, relationships, self-care, spirituality and astrology