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

Ang Lee

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Ang Lee
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: October 23
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Cháozhōu Zhèn
Lǐ Ān
Making
Martial
Art
Wayne
Film
Arts
Chinese
Speaking
John
English
Western

More quotes by Ang Lee

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I have two sons in America, and all they care about in Chinese culture is Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
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At 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.
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My father's family were liquidated during the Cultural Revolution in China because they were landowners. He was the only one to escape. I was born and brought up in Taiwan. But you absorb the trauma. My parents had no sense of security.
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The way I go about a lovemaking scene is that we will talk about it during the rehearsing time.
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I think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.
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I took the name Green Destiny from - well there is such a sword called Green Destiny. It is green because you keep twisting it, it's an ancient skill, you keep twisting it and knocking it and twisting it until it is very elastic and light.
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With 3D you're right there immersed in the world.
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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.
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I like to go back to Chinese film-making from time to time. I don't think I can make Chinese films back to back it's such a big effort. I'd have to take a very long break.
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To me, Ennis stands for the conservative side of America. He's the biggest homophobe in the whole movie - culturally and psychologically - but by the time he admits his feelings, it's too late.
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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.
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If the movie is quiet I generally feel the audience is busy. That's when they're working.
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Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.
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I don't care about writing really.
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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.
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It's not a pleasure torturing actors, although some of them enjoy it.
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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.
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These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture, and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work, and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.
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I don't have a checklist. Whatever material excites me, they'll call for a certain genre or combination of genres. It'll come naturally and I'll be eager to learn how that thing works. I learn the rules, and I'll probably break some of them.
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Americans are hidden dragons to me.
Ang Lee