“We've got a poor tradition for making films. Japanese fiction after a thousand years still lacks dramatic construction. It's all just superficial prettiness... Foreign pictures are powerful in structure because they arise from a strong tradition in fiction. If you make a Japanese picture with strong dramatic elements, it is very dangerous, even revolutionary. The reason is that Japanese intellectuals don't like such things. Our whole trouble in Japan is that, despite a surface affection, Japanese just don't like new things.”