ANG LEE

As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.

I feel that everyone has a Hulk inside, and each of our Hulks is both scary and, potentially, pleasurable. That's the scariest thing about them.

I think people are universal.

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.

I'm quite lazy.

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

Americans are hidden dragons to me.

You become the movie you are making.

You can get rich or famous by doing the same thing.

I think I can work with any type of actor.

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.

Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it's simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is.

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

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

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.

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

I hope people don't compare 2D and 3D because 3D's new, it's unfair to compare to 2D which is really sophisticated, even when we're jaded about it. 3D just began, give it a chance, let the equipment and projection system catch up and be better, let the price go down, let more filmmakers get a hold of it more easily.

I am a shy person.

I think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.

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.

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.

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.

I think life without spirit is in the dark, it is absurd.

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.

When I'm not working, I get very down, but when I am working, I get very immersed in it.