I'm Not A Romantic. In Life I

Beautifully-acted And Precisely Observed, Ilo Ilo Is An Amazing Debut, Full Of Heart And Intelligence.

Making This Movie As A Period Piece About A Period That Was Very Recent In People's Minds. I Was In Taiwan [during The 1970s], So I Hope I Did All Right. Otherwise, It Could Be The Biggest Embarrassment Of My Life. Also, The Story Is Not Linear, It's Patchy, Like A Cubist Painting, And There Is Always The Possibility It Will Not Hold Together, It Will Fall Apart. The Tone Is Part Satire, Part Serious Drama, Part Tragedy, All Mixed Together, And It Has To Hit An Emotional Core. That's Also Very Scary.

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.

When I Grew Up, In Taiwan, The Korean War Was Seen As A Good War, Where America Protected Asia. It Was Sort Of An Extension Of World War Ii. And It Was, Of Course, The Peak Of The Cold War. People In Taiwan Were Generally Proamerican. The Korean War Made Japan. And Then The Vietnam War Made Taiwan. There Is Some Truth To That.

Economically, It’s More Expensive To Make Movies. I Hope Digital Movies Change That.