THE NIGHT FIGHT,

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

I got to watch the US premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, packed into a high-school gym. At the end of the first battle scene, the place ERUPTED like it was a buzzer-beater at finals.

DALLAS GOLDTOOTH, VIA TWITTER

ANG LEE: For the first time with an audience, it was Cannes, in the Palais. The first 15 minutes was very quiet and restrained, unlike every other action movie, and then there was that sequence, and at the end of the drumbeat, BOOM! I was hoping, making that movie, that after that people would take a little break, so I purposely have a long shot of people walking for the next 30 seconds. And the audience in Cannes, first they gasped at the end of that sequence, then it was quiet for about one second, and then all the way until the dialogue came up they cheered, they clapped, they roared, they screamed, they whistled. It was as big as I’ve ever witnessed in my life. It doesn’t get better than that in Cannes.

Maybe it was the way I mixed a lot of things in there, or the atmosphere around 2000, when people were more open-minded. There was a lot of curiosity and somehow it just erupted. It was not expected. You can’t duplicate it. It’s a high, and if you try to get there again, you can’t. Nothing compared to what I experienced with that sequence, so I’m glad people still remember it. AS TOLD TO EDGAR WRIGHT