'My Style Is Very Unusual'

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Fruit Chan, the director of ,, talked with TIME about the art of independent filmmaking:

TIME: Why do you use so many amateur actors?
Chan: This is a very commercial city and if you do things my way—the independent way—you don't want to spend more money for just actors. In Hong Kong, you can separate professional actors into two lines. The second line is not useful. Okay, they can act, but they want money. Or I could choose the first line, but they are very, very expensive. It's cheaper to use amateurs. My style is very unusual.

TIME: Where did you find the actors for the movie?
Chan: The big boy and the little boy I found on the street. The father I found through my friend's husband who works in L.A. That was very expensive: you have to buy him a first-class ticket to fly out to Hong Kong because he's so fat.

TIME: Was Zhou Xun easy to work with?
Chan: Her attitude was quite good. But she was very concerned about sex. This is a Chinese problem. If you make a movie about sex, they're very shy about it. They try to get out of doing the scene.

TIME: How do you solve that?
Chan: I tell them that if they can't do the shot, then we'll change the girl. We'll change you. This is a very tough thing for a Chinese girl. After all, they can't judge if the sex scene is a good scene or a bad scene. They always just say it's a bad scene. You just have to do it slowly and calmly.

TIME: How did you get your name?
Chan: "Fruit" is a direct translation from Chinese. Stage people told me to change it; it means "gay." Why? I don't want to change my name.