In his talk at the Pacific Cinémathèque on Saturday afternoon (April 19), director Ang Lee addressed many issues regarding Asian identity in filmmaking.

He said he values having both his Chinese heritage and his American work experience. “The Chinese side and the American side, or the Western side, they don’t usually fight each other. They feed off each other. The understanding of the Western drama…really helps me in the psychology and sociology…really help me to look at my own culture where I came from…I think Western culture has a lot of strong points that really helped me to reexamine my own culture, and watch it with different eyes…I couldn’t make Lust, Caution or something like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon without working here.”

He also talked about the differences between working in Asia and Hollywood. “When I do Chinese films, because they are a smaller industry, it’s somewhat of an inferior system than the Hollywood system and Western films. So I’m more of a big shot, including film language experiment—things you cannot do here, you can do there.”

But he reasserted that he values working in both worlds. “Each place has something to offer to me and I can learn from it, and learn about cinema.” He also added that he feels his Taiwanese heritage have helped him in films like Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain because they give him a special and unique outlook that he treasures.

Barbara Lee of the Vancouver Asian Film Festival asked if he had any advice for emerging Asian North American filmmakers.

Although he initially said it was a tough question, he had much to say.

“Asians Americans or Asians here has inherited some disadvantage because Asians are not really a market here, we’re a minority. The number is not really a market. And then over Asia, they don’t really care. So you sort of fall in between. So I think it’s like a trap, both in your upbringing, also in thinking of filmmaking, you’re offbeat. You have to think small, very specific, fall into ethnic drama. That’s very good for grants. When you’re talking about Hollywood and the market, that’s too small.”

He encouraged young Asian filmmakers to work on “something that transcends your life experience, something that’s more interesting to a larger audience.”

He pointed out that directors like him or John Woo, or actors like Jet Li and Jackie Chan were already well established in their countries before moving westward and that all they had to do was learn the English language.

Lee says he feels a lot of sympathy for Asian North American actors because they have to wait for the right part. He said it’s easy to be an action hero but hard to be a romantic lead.

He was critical of the caliber of Asian North American filmmaking. “To be honest with you, I don’t think we’re good enough yet…I think writers and filmmakers will have to work harder, and think very larger scale, and more transcendent, to get out of your own life experience.”

Yet he emphasized there is need for more developed characters of Asian descent. “I think there is a hunger in the world, not only America, in general audiences, for more authentic Asian characters.”

He said his next project will be a comedy.

At the end of his talk, councillor B.C. Lee gave him a blue scarf made in Vancouver, and he and posed for pictures with mayor Sam Sullivan.

B.C. Lee has been a longtime friend of Ang Lee, and even had a small part in one of Ang Lee's early films, Pushing Hands.

To read part one, click here.

To read part three, click here.