You have to know the rules, otherwise you have no tools to communicate to the audience, but to keep it fresh you have to break some. I don't choose genres as the element, but the material itself is the element, then I'll decide what genre I need. That's just how I work.
Ang LeeAt times I can't help going for visual comfort. Sometimes a picture fills up your head, and you try to move the actors around to make that visual statement.
Ang LeeI have two sons in America, and all they care about in Chinese culture is Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
Ang LeeI think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.
Ang LeeOnly one time in my career I had that feeling [that this is not gonna get made], it was for this movie [Life of Pi]. It was right before we started the physical pre-production. I pre-visualized the whole ocean part before we made the movie, I was that prepared. At one point they seemed to want to drop it because it was really risky. The budget we proposed was a lot higher than they expected, they wanted to [drop it]. After all, it's a philosophical book and a literature property, it's not Batman.
Ang Lee