We might be shifting away from a Eurocentric view of the United States into something that's much more multicultural, multinational, and Chinese food is just one slice of that.

The philosophy I always have is what's the sentence that would tell me about each shot. If I can't read why the shot's there, what is the story trying to say?

God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers.

Chinese restaurants have long been a weekly or monthly ritual for many Americans.

Chinese cooking is noisy - a multitasking activity that requires constant vigilance. There is no downtime.

With a film, things constantly have to go up in the story, and you're constantly putting pressure on the main character. It allows to go really deep into what its relationship is.

In deference to American traditions, my family put our oven to rare use at Thanksgiving during my childhood, with odd roast-turkey experiments involving sticky-rice stuffing or newfangled basting techniques that we read about in magazines.