"Usually with this genre the first thing that happens is a good fight sequence to show that you're in good hands. So we broke that rule. I think a lot of that comes from the western audience"
About this Quote
A fight scene as a handshake: Ang Lee nails the unspoken contract mainstream action cinema tries to sign in the first five minutes. Show competence, signal stakes, reassure the audience they won’t be “wasting” their attention. His point isn’t just about pacing; it’s about trust, and how studio genre has been engineered to front-load proof of value the way an app front-loads features.
When Lee says “we broke that rule,” he’s describing a deliberate refusal to audition for the viewer. That’s an artistic flex, but it’s also a quiet critique of the market logic baked into genre filmmaking. The “good hands” line carries a hint of irony: why should a director with mastery have to demonstrate it immediately, like credentials at the door? Lee’s career is practically a catalog of crossing wires between art-house sensitivity and crowd-pleasing spectacle, and that tension sits inside this quote. He understands the rule because he can execute it; breaking it is the point.
The kicker is “the western audience.” Lee isn’t taking a cheap shot at taste so much as identifying a training process. Hollywood has tutored audiences to expect immediate payoff, clean genre signals, and kinetic competence as a baseline. Contrast that with traditions where mood, restraint, or moral ambiguity can lead. In his hands, delaying the expected fight isn’t a slow start; it’s a reorientation. He’s asking viewers to sit in uncertainty long enough for character, atmosphere, and meaning to earn the violence rather than the other way around.
When Lee says “we broke that rule,” he’s describing a deliberate refusal to audition for the viewer. That’s an artistic flex, but it’s also a quiet critique of the market logic baked into genre filmmaking. The “good hands” line carries a hint of irony: why should a director with mastery have to demonstrate it immediately, like credentials at the door? Lee’s career is practically a catalog of crossing wires between art-house sensitivity and crowd-pleasing spectacle, and that tension sits inside this quote. He understands the rule because he can execute it; breaking it is the point.
The kicker is “the western audience.” Lee isn’t taking a cheap shot at taste so much as identifying a training process. Hollywood has tutored audiences to expect immediate payoff, clean genre signals, and kinetic competence as a baseline. Contrast that with traditions where mood, restraint, or moral ambiguity can lead. In his hands, delaying the expected fight isn’t a slow start; it’s a reorientation. He’s asking viewers to sit in uncertainty long enough for character, atmosphere, and meaning to earn the violence rather than the other way around.
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