Ang Lee's producer works without formula

 

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The opening scene featured women playing mahjong. Chinese audiences easily picked up the politics behind the scene, but for Western audiences it was just a tedious game of cards.

While working on the script for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Schamus changed one of the lines of protagonist Li Mubai, a quiet and rigid swordsman, to: "I will always love you."

Lee called Schamus and said, "No. He would never say that. Chinese guys do not say 'I will always love you'."

In the case of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Schamus worked with Taiwan writer Wang Hui-ling on the screenplay. He read Wang's drafts and pointed out things he could not understand as a Westerner.

"There is never a formula for success," Schamus says. "That kind of thinking will lead you nowhere. People always ask me the same question. When I was in Brazil, they asked me, 'You've worked with Ang Lee, so what is the formula for making an international hit? 'Every time I was asked this question, I told them,' Just make it in Chinese.'"

Schamus warns filmmakers to be careful when pitching comedies to an international audience. "Oftentimes when I helped develop screenplays about other cultures, I would say that what this person is saying and how he says maybe is funny to you, but we don't think it is funny at all. So there must be something funny between you and me," he says.

"The biggest movies in Germany, for example, are not Hollywood movies. They are German comedies. But for people who do not know about German culture, they are about insane people doing crazy things. Nightmare."

Understanding the subtleties between different cultures is key to reaching an international audience.

"It's not about changing the essence of the film, but the subtle knowledge of how things travel between cultures."

Learning from your mistakes does not apply to every situation, Schamus says.

"When Ang Lee and I were financing for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, they said, 'Ah, another Chinese kung fu movie. We have lost so much money in this genre'. They are the kind of people who learn from their mistakes," he says, laughing.

 

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