If you're an artist working in China, you become aware that there are things you have to give up in order to practice your art. For the most part, you know what they are. With my first three films, the consequences of making them was that I had to forgo the possibility of releasing them theatrically in China.
If you look at ancient Chinese culture, and depictions of it, the relationship between people and nature was very different. It almost felt as though feelings were always attached to a certain landscape.
With all our new technologies, I feel like these feelings have really been dampened. Even if you are thousands of kilometers from somebody, you can still video chat with them on your cellphone. Even though we can see each other more on the internet, maybe our hearts becomes more distant.
Language is so specific to art, all the way to the past in China. Previously, people were not allowed to include various regional dialects in their films, but in every film that I've made, I've maintained the regional dialects of the characters because I wanted to make films that were locally specific.
I think previously, when fathers and sons argued with each other, they would still face each other and face each other's feelings, but now, the relationships between people has become much more abstracted. I think, actually, in China, the gulf that exists between the pre- and post-internet generations is more vast.
There are a lot of colloquialisms in the Cantonese language that can never be represented aptly in Mandarin.
I think the new technologies have become pervasive in our society, such as cellphones and the internet, and they've insidiously affected our personal sense of space and belonging.
