I don't think people who see the Bruce Lee portrayal as negative, or even honest, are really paying attention to the movie (or at least how it's presenting that moment) or the director's actual feelings on the subject. He loves Bruce Lee and martial arts cinema in general, but does Cliff Burton? The movie breaks the timeline pretty deliberately, each one centered on some kind of lie. Rick lying about why he doesn't drive, Cliff and his wife on the boat...who's to say Cliff, the audience's avatar into this world, wouldn't lie to us about what happened when he fought Bruce Lee?

The character is never presented as a reliable narrator, and it's made abundantly clear that if Leo's character is fearful for his future, Cliff is resigned to his insignificance. In that light, us seeing that moment through Cliff's lens to me reads as a fantasy to the point it may not even be how that fight "actually" occurred, accepting that Cliff is not a real person and Bruce is and that this whole movie is a revenge fantasy for a crime that, in its universe, doesn't actually happen anyway.

Contrast the Bruce portrayed in Cliff's memory of him with the Bruce we see "in the real world" playfully training Sharon and generally being just a cool karate dude and I think you get a clearer picture as well. If you walk away from that scene thinking "there's no way Cliff Booth beats Bruce Lee in a street fight" (which, by the way, he also didn't do, even if the car spot is the wow moment of the scene) I'd argue it's entirely possible that Bruce Lee kicked his ass in the "actual" fight depending on how much you choose to believe what we see on the screen versus what we know about those two characters.


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