So there’s a lot of fighting in the film and please address the dangerous element to that.

Ronny Yu: Oh, there’s no danger. This is the usual breaking and bruises and hands breaking and no, no. The reason why I love to make this movie because I have Jet Li. And Jet Li is for me the only one in the world who can both act and perform traditional Chinese Wu Shu. And you know not even Jackie Chan because Jackie Chan is acrobat and all that, but I think Jet not just the subject, but good technique, but he understand the philosophy. He totally understand that Chinese Wu Shu is not necessarily about form, but just you like the technique, the movement, he has to embrace body soul and mind. That is the most important. And when I first met with Jet and the choreographer [? Ping], I said now that we have Jet, I think we should forget about doing all those quick cut, 2 second cut, all those you know flying everywhere, we are going to go back to doing a real Chinese Wu Shu movie, we should go back to basic. To when I was growing up in Hong Kong in the ‘50s, ‘60s, you know maybe the audience appreciate the performance, their movement and all that. But that’s a problem. Immediately you walk in set that’s a problem because nobody there wants to fight with Jet because Jet is so fast and he is so good so I says fine and we send people all over the world, find somebody who can is also a very good martial artist to fight with Jet and because I really want to go back to the roots where you can see clearly one punch, one kick, rather than do those wide full movie that even the Hollywood director know how to do. 
 

Did filming the weaponry scenes change any of that though?

Ronny Yu: Well, that’s a very dangerous, good question, the weapon is very dangerous even though some of them we didn’t use the real one, it still had to have the feeling of the weight, so it still metal, but it like lightweight metal, and that did require a lot of practice and rehearsal. And you know it you got but the restaurant scene the guy that fight with Jet is a fantastic martial artist but he got cut right here. Right in the middle. I was looking at the monitor, I thought nothing, I thought it was a bump or something, but then the blood start gushing out and I said what have you done Jet, he said no no I did not do anything, but as you know any action sequence even though you’re so coordinated and all that, but driven from the actor, that you cannot control. 
 

Is he ok?

Ronny Yu: Yeah, yeah, like 12 stitches. And then I have to lay down a CGI like paint it out all the stitches but that’s a good thing about CGI. 
 

How hard is it to find someone to match the capacity that Jet Li has?

Ronny Yu: Very hard, very hard. Because Jet is known to not pull any punches and especially with this one that I really want long take, I want at least like 10 lows rather than 2 and changing them, that means the other party has to understand and they have to practice the same style otherwise they will never match and so we be looking everywhere. You know, it’s easy to find someone who is good, but they look ugly. I mean you got to, you need, it’s a movie, you have to have some charisma rather than some fantastic guy, some Japanese karate champion, I say no I can’t use it. So that’s why I decided on a Japanese actor; he doesn’t know anything about martial arts right but he grew up on the stage, kabuki, those really painted and the body movement so gracious, so he understand about movement, so we train him for like two months. European people train him for two months because he had this basic understanding of movement about cameras and all that so that helps and everybody watched the movie and thought oh he’s a fantastic martial artist, no he’s not. He’s a good actor. 
 

How has your approach changed in this film?

Ronny Yu: Well, after I remember like I walk away from Snake on a Plane, and then I have sort of some downtime and met with Jet and then we sat down and we decided we should go back to the roots right of wu shu movie we should not the [?] straight, but give the audience an alternative to your usual kung fu chop-saki movie, because we believe, me and Jet, that it’s a misinterpretation. Those kung fu actually kung fu movie was invented by Bruce Lee and if you look at all the kung fu movie their production value is great and so their the director doesn’t care about the character development care about the story and I remember when I was in Hollywood when I was making Chucky and Freddie I had a lot of like young crew members on my team and they all like Americans and I asked them do you like Chinese film, and they said oh yeah we like all your kung fu movie and I said so you know how do you watch kung fu movie. I watch it with a remote. They just fast forward, forget about all the character forget about all the drama, just rewind and fast forward all the way to the fight. I said why. They said first of all I don’t get the story, second of all I don’t understand what the character so I just love the action but for me is really depressing because Chinese wu shu is part of our culture it’s like pen writing. Painting and all that. And also like it become a means for violence if you look at all the old kung fu movie, it’s all about revenge. You know, you start the movie with an actor’s family, you know maybe some actor’s family got killed or raped, and then they go off to the mountain and get a master please teach me. Even Kill Bill’s like that. And then what happened at the end of the movie, a vicious killing and then he walk off into the sunset I’m a hero, and that is exactly the opposite of Chinese wu shu. If you look at the Chinese writing wu shu, it’s two characters, all Chinese words are made up of different words put together to form a meaning, actually the Chinese word wu is not like fight, it’s made up of stop fighting, a word conflict, and wu shu, the shu meaning technique, art form. So basically Chinese wu shu is about averting conflict about stopping, so the better you are in Chinese wu shu, the better peacemaker you are. Because when somebody dare you, you say stop. So that is basically the philosophy behind it. So this time around I got to work with Jet and we just wanted to present an alternative view to the audience. There is character development in the story, there is a moral tale in the story, and I just want and Jet Li is not just a fighter but he is also a dramatic performer actor, so this is somehow the challenge or the exercise that we sort of try to present. 
 

Can you talk about the film being Jet Li’s last epic martial arts movie?

Ronny Yu: I think it all goes back to what I mentioned to the core. This is a Chinese wu shu movie. A Chinese wu shu movie is different from like martial art. Martial art are the general sensation. Like karate is martial art. Like the Brazilian self-defense is also martial art. So many different thing incorporate martial art. But Chinese wu shu movie, in order to qualify, first of all the actor has to be a practitioner and he himself has to do all the move not pretend, not imitate, but still have to do it. And also all wu shu movie has a very sort of obvious theme a moral theme good against evil just like Western. But slowly as time goes by, those quality has been overcome by kung fu revenge killing so everybody lump everything down to ok kung fu movie martial art movie. So what Jet is saying is basically because all he learn from Chinese wu shu from last 30 years, all he learn about philosophy about true spirit, he poured everything out in this one and also he told me he’s 43 years old and almost every bone in his body and his neck and his spine and his knee is really broken up. So he doesn’t know how long he can really perform to the audience and let the audience appreciate the movement, the graciousness, the poetic of Chinese wu shu. And he doesn’t know how long he can take. Because as you know, the chi inside everyone of us like energy, when you do a move, it require a lot of energy, it not like pretend, no, no, no, it really take a lot of energy, and when age start creeping up, that takes a lot toll, it’s not that he’s not doing another gun play and all that, that easy for him to do, so now after we finish movie, he said, now you’re on another mission, now you have to explain to everybody. I said ok, I love to, so I was in Sydney, Australia, the Melbourne Film Festival, that’s why I tell everybody, you know, I think because the filmmakers, the Hong Kong filmmakers I think I blame that because they were lazy, they said ok, this is goldmine, let’s do that and they forget about it, let the audience have alternative view of what that genre is all about. 
 

How has the movie changed from the one that was released from abroad?

Runny Yu: Wow, it’s for me, I’m telling you, man, this is the most difficult movie for me to make, because off the top, I want to make, me and Jet, a movie that’s ambitious, a movie that just not for the Asian audience because of the message, we want people all over the world to understand the message and appreciate the message. So after I done my cut according to original script, I sit back and I say no, this is too literal, too literal and too preachy, so I had to go back and rearrange the whole structure so we bring the ending back to the front to get, you know in a little bit of marketing calculation, because you don’t want, you want the audience to wait 10, 15 minutes before they see Jet Li, that was in original cut. So every single factor in the original movie I had to think and rethink and I had to step back and try to be as objective as I am, how can I make this story understood not just by Chinese, everybody in China understand about this guy, but so it’s finding that balance like ongoing struck all the time, and I’m lucky my experiment I think worked for me because this it the first time that a Chinese film is edited by two American editor who doesn’t understand any Chinese, all they have is a translated script, so I hired a woman, Virginia Cats, to edit the action, and then I hired Richard Leroy, to cut like eye-robot, to cut all the action, reason why, of course, I get a lot of people saying you crazy and all that, but my theory is if this two person after they cut the movie and they can touch by it and understood what that means then I have crossed the barrier and the first battle’s won and now that it’s proven I hope next Friday that it proves I was right. 
 

Was it hard to find the right location?

Ronny Yu: Yes. The whole thing we built. Everything. The whole thing was built. The town, the restaurant, everything. Even the farm. Even that village. We had to build everything, the rice patty, everything. 
 

How long has the film been out?

Ronny Yu: It was released in Chinese New Year in January ’06. 
 

How does chi movement affect your camera work?

Ronny Yu: I lay a long track. I let the actor for instance Jet I said why don’t we reverse it in the morning, right, and then after lunch go to it, because I remember this one particular shot where he does this kick on the top of a hill, and the choreographer in the morning would come in and they would design all these fantastic moves for him you know and all that and I was looking at it and I thought no no no, it doesn’t feel right. Let’s break for lunch. And during lunch I walked over to Jet and I said Jet, why don’t we try something, forget about the design and the choreographer and all that. After lunch, I’m going to set up three cameras on three tracts, all different lenses, and you forget about everything, and I just keep the camera rolling and then you just do your stuff and go back when you were like 6 years old when your master teach you, go back to that state of mind, don’t worry about two moves I turn on three kicks I jump, go back, use your heart you know and we did it one take. And he said, should we do it again and I said no because I think that only comes once. You know and that’s how even if I think with a Western fighter it’s same thing, I say don’t think too much. That’s why we have casualties. Because some of the moves wasn’t planned, I remember that the English swordsmen, the French swordsmen, actually is a very sort of like glorified martial artist in Hollywood, he actually taught Michelle Pfieffer, you know, Catwoman, the whip and all that and he’s very good with a sword, but a couple times he got cut and a couple times he cut Jet, you know, but I just want that realism, that truthfulness, even in the fight sequences. 
 

Are you a practitioner of wu shu?

Ronny Yu: Well, I am, I love Chinese wu shu and because I had polio when I was little and when I went to boarding school in England, that was when I saw movie, and during that time was when Bruce Lee started to come out, so you know everybody pretend to be Bruce Lee so we get all the Chinese kids like that, you know, and then we always hang out in one of the restaurants in London and so one of the chefs, right, said, ok, run and you cannot do all those kicking and all that, but I can teach you one style, it’s called wing chun, which is like for women because in China women wear long skirts, it’s indecent for them to kick so high, so they practice all the hand movements, so he said ok, maybe I can teach you that. So then you know when you have problem with someone in an elevator, then you can do some of that. 
 

What are you doing next?

Ronny Yu: I’m going back to horror. I’m doing Blood, the Last Empire. Which is an adaptation of Japanese animation. 
 

Will you work with Jet on a non-action film?

Ronny Yu: Oh yeah! On a non-action film? That’s a taboo! No, we love to work together, yeah. We’ll do a children film! 
 

Why did you walk away from Snakes on a Plane?

Ronny Yu: Ah, you want me to get on that? Just quickly. Ok, what happen is, I was turned on by the title, Snake on a Plane, so I thought ok, this is gonna be another jewel, because the star is the shot, so I knew I said, you are such a mate with Samuel L. Jackson, you are such a mate, well, we need a star on the show, I said, ok, that’s a good idea, but now we have problem, who is the star? Because the audience is, once you have Samuel L. Jackson, the audience is sit there and think well the hero going to save everybody, so there’s nothing intriguing, right? So I said, why don’t we kill him off right in the middle. Viciously. Brutally. Like you know the python like slowly swallow him. But he die for the plane. Now the audience is intrigued. Now everybody on the plane going to group together and kill the snake. They’re sort of like in a way, a more interesting, of course they said take a walk man.