The way I go about a lovemaking scene is that we will talk about it during the rehearsing time.

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

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

Everywhere can be home and everywhere is not really home and you have to deal with loneliness and alienation. I`m old enough to realize that eventually you have to deal with loneliness, anyway. I`m happily married, I love my children, but eventually you have to deal with yourself. I trust the elusive world created by movies more than anything else. I`m very happy when I`m making a movie.

I am a shy person.

There`s a private feeling to the movie, an intimate feeling. I think eventually everybody has a Brokeback Mountain (2005) in them. Someone you want to come back to. And, of course, some people don`t come back.

I`m a drifter and an outsider. There`s not one single environment I can totally belong to. My cultural roots are something illusive.

It could be the hidden side of you; I think making movies is a great way to release that. I think it is important to be honest with that, and have fun with it.

When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We`d just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I`ve got $26 left.

I`m experienced enough to know that the hardest thing to tell is an epic short story; slices of life that add up to an epic feeling.

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

I think the American West really attracts me because it`s romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

I think you look like a fool as a director when you talk too much about what the actors are doing. You want them to listen to you, but personally speaking, I don`t want them to just follow everything I say without processing it. This is a problem for Asian actors. They are so polite, and they`ve been trained to smile and nod and agree with everything someone in power tells them. I`m not looking for conflict, but I`m not happy if someone is repressing their feelings either.

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 was never romantic in real life. That is why I have to make movies about it.

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. It was as if the world could turn against them at any moment.

Usually with this genre the first thing that happens is a good fight sequence to show that you`re in good hands. So we broke that rule. I think a lot of that comes from the western audience.

Meanwhile, the Ice Storm was still in development, And that was something I really wanted to do, and frankly I don`t think I was ready to do a big production like this.

In the past I`ve made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can`t really hate them. You can discard them, but you can`t really hate them.

On the receiving side, I think the whole world is more ready, with the Internet, with film festivals and DVDs. It used to be a one-way street from West to East: we were receiving and the West was producing. I think we`re getting closer and closer. The gap between cultures is getting erased every day.

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.

So many times you see beautiful lovemaking scenes with a lot of exposure or an awkward lovemaking scene, but I think it`s very rare that you see it private.

Working with Heath was one of the purest joys of my life. He brought to the role of Ennis more than any of us could have imagined - a thirst for life, for love, and for truth, and a vulnerability that made everyone who knew him love him. His death is heartbreaking. - Mourning actor Heath Ledger.

I think people are universal.

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.

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.

Sexuality is a big issue, but there are others - how much you commit to a relationship, to social obligation, to honesty and being honest with yourself.

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.

Every movie I make. That`s my hideout, the place I don`t quite understand, but feel most at home.

I think I find something new in each culture after being away for a bit, and that`s creatively important. You can`t move forward without changing, and that`s why I try to stay open to new perspectives. I want to keep learning. If there`s one thing I`ve learned, it`s that you can never learn enough.

When I see something I like, that`s all that counts. What they use, how they get there, I never bother them.

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.

When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write. That`s why I wrote family drama - I`m a domestic person, it`s all I know!

Nothing stands still. That`s important in my movies. People want to believe in something, want to hang on to something to get security and want to trust each other. But things change. Given enough time, nothing stands still. I think seeking for security and lack of security is another thing in my movies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

American films are less American every day, because you have to please a world audience. There`s less authenticity, so it`s more accessible.

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

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 don`t know where I am, but I never know where I am. I was born in China, then my parents moved to Taiwan, where we were outsiders, then to the States, then back to China, then back here. I trust the elusive world created by movies more than anything else. I live on the other side of the screen.

I think that`s important in Western cowboy poetry, literature and therefore in the movie, is that things are in the air. They`ve got space and time.