“The body always plays an important role in my films. You could say the body is the most beautiful thing we have or you could say it’s the ugliest thing we have. We can sell bodies, we can adore or worship bodies.”
“So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it's one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point. ”
“Sometimes they think the way we work is very stylish and romantic, but actually it's the way we can survive and make the films. We can work with the things that we get, but not the things we wish we had.”
“I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about what my aptitude is, and I really think it's to explore and push the medium. It's not about breaking gender roles or genre traditions.”
“I, as a filmmaker, treat my works as I do my own sons or daughters. I don't care if people are fond of them or despise them, as long as I created them with my best intentions and efforts.”
“I believe that it doesn't really matter how large an audience my film gets; as long as my films can be shown in China, and there can be any kind of real market for them here, that would be hugely significant for me personally.”
“I don’t start with a philosophical or thematical approach. Instead I often start with a genre that’s relatively easy to understand and then explore how I want to work in that genre.”
“When I finish a film, I feel like I have overcome a certain hurdle. It's really good for me as a human being, and I hope that for some people, my films will do the same thing.”
“It is my duty to direct because the films might be the inner chronicle of what we are, and we have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.”
“Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing their whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.”
“I look for very strong visual unity by using a type of framing and camera movement that is very simple. Everything
must come from inside. It mustn’t be superficial. I hate weird camera angles and distorting lenses.”