On a Chinese film you just give orders, no one questions you. Here, you have to convince people, you have to tell them why you want to do it a certain way, and they argue with you. Democracy.

It's not a pleasure torturing actors, although some of them enjoy it.

3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning. So when I think of doing that I was very excited. It didn't go as far as I think it should, I'm still a novice, but I think it's fair to say it's a new cinematic medium, experience.

I think it[3D] should be used as a new artistic form, not as a gimmick, not to impress you but the existence of an environment that you view as a theatrical dramatic experience is - you don't just have the X-Y axis, you have the Z and that makes a difference. You still have the framing, you still use lenses, so most of the cinematic rules and languages still apply but I think it's a different existence.

The thing we call critics are not really reviewers, they are not really critics. They don't have the discipline to write what we would term as critique - it's really just reviewers. They have a common man kind of taste. If you watch them overall, they are not different from the box-office. That's my view.

My first instinct was to cast as close to the short story as possible, but then I realized that I needed actors who could go for it and that they had to function well as a couple in a love story.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.