I thought it was a huge conflict of interest to be the director and the subject - it's very sketchy territory to be in. I've seen what's happened to other directors who have done that.
Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.
I understand the directors much more. I was always rebelling against them when I was a youngster, I didn't want to be told what to do. I had no identification.