“I thought it could be interesting for me to do a historical period piece about Japan, but I don’t know if that’s entirely appropriate for me to do. However, if I were asked to do a chushingura story, where it’s a westerner’s point of view of the folkloric story, then that becomes interesting...That’s why I got involved [in 47 Ronin], the process of telling the chushingura story allowed for certain liberties that I as a western filmmaker could make.”