I just did a dramatic love story. Whether it's a cultural phenomenon is not for me to say.

Every movie is unknown.

Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.

Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again.

I'm not a romantic. In life I didn't have much experience with romance.

When you go for something because you're curious about it, you get psyched up about the chance of getting into it. It's like an actor meets a role, and you slip into that body and see what happens, to experience certain conditions, to adopt a certain character. Even shooting is a study of the character. I think both the character and the actor, and eventually the filmmaker - myself - are finding a way to accept their environment and being accepted and feel comfortable of themselves.

I think that at heart I am an old-fashioned Chinese, really I am.