Ang Lee Quotes

Even the favorite reviews, the audience response is the movie is too slow, deliberately slow. But for the Chinese audience, the biggest complaint is it happens too quick. I think the historical background that build into our genes is different. American people has never been occupied. The deep sadness and sentimentality, the cultural background that relates to melodrama that we relate to and grow up with, the propaganda, I didn't imagine the difference is so big. It's a very interesting cultural phenomenon.

San Francisco is one of my favourite cities in the world...I would probably rank it at the top or near the top. It's small but photogenic and has layers...You never have problems finding great angles that people have never done.

There's only one movie in my career I've had regrets with cutting it shorter, and I think some scenes maybe I shouldn't have cut.

The most mysterious feminine factor, the existence that we men, we don't know. It's woman. It's feminine. That's what the sword is about. That's the symbolic meaning of the sword.

I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.

Not taboo - it's just that straight actors still risk their careers commercially and economically. They have to please the crowd - they're movie stars; their image is their industry. It goes beyond acting.

I don't like to deal with studios. I don't like to have conversations with executives. I pitch to the studio, then never talk to them until the test screening.

Kids don't even read comic books anymore. They've got more important things to do - like video games.

When there is a strong woman character in a story - that always grabs me

I think the book struck me in a few ways that I thought very interesting to pick it as my first martial arts film. It has a very strong female character and it was very abundant in classic Chinese textures.

I'm aware of what's missing from my life.

I don't think the Hulk is a superhero. He's the first Marvel character who is a tragic monster. Really an anti-hero.

I have two sons in America, and all they care about in Chinese culture is Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

I think doing period piece is easier, because after a certain distance, everybody is equal, I think. The relative contemporary is harder. I think that's the way it is.

The L.A. weather is a lot like Taiwan's, where you don't observe four seasons, so the years can pass and you don't feel a thing.

Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done.

I wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world's population - even to a lot of Americans.

Every movie I make. That’s my hideout, the place I don’t quite understand, but feel most at home.

I think a movie is a media that is evoking feelings.

For a filmmaker, it's a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.

The woman's perspective is like the dark side of the moon: it always exists, but it is never exposed, at least not in my culture.

Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don't meet.

If it was a choice between making movies and doing nothing, he'd probably still wish me to make movies, So he made me keep going.

Summer blockbusters are very expensive to make. They have things that have to be expensive, such as 600 effects shots or CG characters that have to go a certain way, or a film design that is different but expensive.

Even dramatically how you position some person, the depth, the existence [in 3D] is different than a flat image even though by itself it has depth, we create the illusion of depth. For example, some of the shots I have to stay closer to the actor because it's a young actor, I like it closer for some of the shots. I watch 2D scenes next to the camera, then when I go back to my station and watch it in 3D I have to go back and reduce his acting, he has to shrink a little bit because he peeks out more.

As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.

When I have a full schedule like that, I don't see myself sitting there for a couple of months, doing the research, going through a painful process, it's just not my thing anymore.

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 was nerve-wracking [to unleash 'Life of Pi' to the world]. The first show to the journalists, that was the first one, so I was very uptight. Then I felt okay about the reception because we did a press conference with good and friendly questions, although people looked serious. So really, after the show you went to - the premiere - that reception tells me I think the movie worked, so that was a relief. I started to feel deflated.

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

I'm not a master of films. I'm rather a slave.

Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western.

I try to be a partygoer. But at some point I don't know why I'm doing it and fall back. I've been using repression, the struggle between behaving as a social animal. You're seeking to be honest with your free will, less conflict. I think that's an important subject with me. That's who I am, how I was brought up. I think I use that a lot. I mistrust everything I think. Things you think you can trust, believe in, or hang on to, changes. That's the essence of life.

Everyone in the gay community doesn't think alike.

My cultural roots are something illusive.

I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along.

It's just what I am. When I am in the zone making one movie, I just didn't want to read anything else or do anything else, so I don't really develop projects.

I basically made the movie from the crew's suggestions. For one scene, I wanted some kids' toys against the wall in Mikey's room, to give the scene texture, and we tried a field hockey stick. It looked really good to me, until someone had to say that in America, field hockey is more of a girl's game. Gradually I got tuned into the world - that happens on every movie.

So anything that's not absolutely needed, we would cut it [footage] out, which would make me very insecure; everything has to work, and it's a water movie in 3D with a kid, animals. So the more I do that, the more I'm scared of "What if it doesn't go the way we want it?" But we had to do that to meet the budget, otherwise we wouldn't even have a start-date.

When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.

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.

Directing, I get all kinds of inspiration. It's working with people. It's a lot more fun.

I grew up pretty much prevented from knowing anything from Communist China except that they were the bad guys that stole our country.

When something possesses me, I go ahead and do it.

I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.

My father was the center of the family, and everyone tried to please him.

When you talk about God, the first thing that comes along is not love, it's fear. You have to fear, and be in awe. You have to be scared. Any religion, it's like first thing.

So it [3D] is something I'm still learning, it's fresh, so if the budget allows I'll do it again and just see how far it goes because it's the frontier, it's more interesting. It's still expensive, the projection system can be annoying sometimes, it's not really regulated or perfected yet, so it's still expensive. If I do a lower budget I'll just do 2D, but if the budget allows I think I'll try 3D.