I tell everyone that I will not listen to them until the movie is made 
The son of a famous Chinese filmmaker, Chen Kaige attended the Beijing Film Academy in the late 70s and became known as one of the Fifth Generation Chinese directors, making his debut with Yellow Earth. Kaige's epic Farewell My Concubine was the first Chinese-language film to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993, and he has since made Temptress Moon,
What was the inspiration for Together With You?
I watched a TV documentary a long time ago which really impressed me. It was about a father and son who come from a remote area of China and who try to survive in Beijing. The father worked very hard for the son's violin tuition fees. The ending of the documentary was very different from my film, though. The son tells the father that he wants to quit music to be a businessman, which really disappoints the father.
How would you compare working in the West, as you did with previous film Killing Me Softly, to working in China?
It doesn't matter to me whether I work in China or the West, as long as I have a good script. To make a film is to look for troubles - that's the nature of being a filmmaker wherever you are. I don't think film directors in the West have absolute control of the movie they want to make. Other people share the power with them to decide what the movie should look like. In China we have the same problem, especially when the production is big. Many people will come and tell you how to do things. My policy is simple - I tell everyone that I will not listen to them until the movie is made.
Why did you cast yourself as Professor Yu, and your wife (Chen Hong) as Lili the prostitute?
I didn't really want to play Yu, until my friends convinced me that I was the best person for the role. They said that directing on a set was pretty much like being a music professor. Even though Chen and me had been married for seven years, we hadn't worked together, and she'd never asked me for a part. Normally she's cast as the daughter of a rich businessman or as a princess, and I told her she should change her image and play this prostitute character. She's a very famous actress in China and lots of people don't realise it's her playing Lili.
The soundtrack to Together With You is mainly comprised of Western classical music from the 19th century. When did you become familiar with this music?
I received an education in that sort of music as a boy. My mother told me, although you may not necessarily be religious, you need to know something about Western classical music, and I became a big fan. For Together I worked with a professional music editor to select the pieces I wanted to use, and to decide on their order. I wanted the music to describe the characters and to reflect their relationships and their internal worlds.
