A self-confessed Gun Freak who shoots weddings "for anyone who needs it, and that’s what I do to earn my living", has found catharsis with independent filmmaking and theatre. Actor, graphic design graduate, amateur comedian, film-plotter, cameraman, tech-savvy web designer, and most of all, film and theatre director, 28-year-old James Lee (Ishmael) spews his defining moments and thoughts on violence and his art with Kakiseni.com.

Kakiseni: When did you first say to yourself: ‘I’m going to be a filmmaker’?
Lee: Since my teens, I have always wanted to do film, but I didn’t have my connections, jalan, or ideas. I had wanted to study filmmaking after my Diploma in Graphic Design (from Saito Academy). I wanted to go to New York, and my second choice was Australia. But it was expensive and I couldn’t afford it. So, I’ve totally forgotten about studying to make movies and have looked into alternative ways. That’s why I jumped into theatre. I had no idea what theatre was like. Actors Studio was here, so I got myself involved in theatre first.

Kakiseni: I recall seeing you get up on stage during Happy Hours with Harith Iskandar, apologising to the audience about your English, and then bowling them over with your brave performance. Was that your first experience in theatre?
Lee: No, actually my first theatre experience was in front-of-house and stage managing. After a while, I did Happy Hours. That was after I did Joe Hasham’s Acting Course. I was captivated by the fact that theatre was very different from movies. There were also the contemporary dancers, and what they came up with really opened my eyes.

Kakiseni: And then you plucked up the courage to go on stage after Harith to make people laugh?
Lee: They were just dirty jokes, cheap jokes that were salvaged from the Internet. But it was more like trying out and trying to get over the stage fright. But on some nights, when there were no laughs, it was bad and Harith would have to come and rescue me. And the stuff that usually didn’t work was my own stuff. Later, I learnt to tell the effective jokes first, and then my own stuff.

Kakiseni: Would you say that you are a shy person?
Lee: It depends … if you look at my background, I was from Ipoh and even though I did not come from a Chinese educated background, I have very conservative parents who forced me to study hard all the time. And none of my family members are involved in anything like theatre …

For me, it’s more like I found theatre. Theatre gave me the reason why I wanted to make films. Theatre is a place where I can express something. I was attracted to Chicken Parts with the experimentation and through its audience. To me, the experimentation of Chicken Parts is a forum where you show yourself naked to the audience.

Kakiseni: So when did you start making films?
Lee: I started making shorts two or three years ago. I got myself a second-hand camera (Video 8) and started doing shorts.

Kakiseni: Were you influenced by any filmmaker in particular?
Lee: I think Tim Burton who did Ed Wood with Johnny Depp. I think Tim Burton is one of Hollywood's best directors. But Ed Wood was the worst director in the whole world, but the spirit and characters really impressed me. He didn’t have any money to make movies, and he even stole costumes and props from the Hollywood studios. It’s quite surprising to see a man so energetic … and he ended up making porn movies. He had really good ideas for porn movies.

Kakiseni: Looking at what you have produced, you seem to have injected a lot of violent elements into your films. For example, in Survivor, you have Loi Chin Yu about to make a human torch out of Lee Swee Keong, then in Snipers, you have a hitman running around, and a lot of people get shot in Ah Beng Returns.
Lee: It’s because of my penchant for John Woo movies and Martin Scorcese’s films … if this was America, I’d be a gun freak. I’ve related to a piece of gun and what it can do in the real world. I’ve felt uneasy and disturbed by the violence in the real world. (Lee reels off various nasty real events) . But don’t forget that the medium is not the problem, or the art in movies for that matter. Violence is already a plan of human life.

Kakiseni: But why deal with it?
Lee: For Snipers, in terms of the protagonist, it was a way of solving problems by shooting people to let them move forward in their lives.

Kakiseni: That can come across as a dangerous statement …
Lee: It’s just how people read it … I identify with such characters. I was attracted to Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver, and Michael Douglas in Falling Down. I may have ended up like them if there was no theatre and no film. It’s a problem in today’s world which people don’t realise. They are looking for an alternative way to cover that imbalance. They want to make a statement. They are ordinary people forced to the point of breaking.

But of course, I do not encourage people to do this to express themselves. I seriously do not encourage people to shoot others just because they are dissatisfied. You can’t shoot anyone else unless it’s for self-defence.

Kakiseni: So how do you justify identifying with the angstful characters where the men are prevented from what they really want to do, so they flip. And basically, your films are about people flipping out. Are you pumping in some reasons for your audience to start thinking about things like that?
Lee: Yeah, maybe it is for them to think about it. But the thing with my plays and movies, I never usually enforce anything on the audience. I believe in that. I think for the director, yes, when they make their own movies they have their own agenda and their own manifesto. At the end of the day, we’re human beings also, we believe in something and that’s why we’ve got to make these movies. Some will make it for comedy, some will make it for money, they have their own reasons. It’s up to the audience to interpret, filter and judge. Whenever you come to a play or a movie, it’s always a manipulation of true life. So, to me, I think a film should be done in whatever way you want, but it should be left to the audience to decide.

Kakiseni: You had earlier described yourself as a gun freak. So, if you had a chance to own a gun, what would you be doing with it in real life?
Lee (laughs) : It depends how I end up. I mean, if I’m still doing theatre or movies I think I’ll be quite safe.

Kakiseni: I’ve noticed some anti-capitalist sentiments in your work. Would you say that you are also an anarchist in some sense, talking about blowing things up … would you say you have that in you?
Lee (still laughing) : Yes, I would say that a lot of people have that in them, but it depends on the environment. I believe a lot of the Reformasi demonstrators have that in them … but it depends on how far they are willing to go, and why are they not willing to go so far. Because we’re not really that poor, we’re not really that oppressed yet. Or we’re not really that left out yet. Those who are left out will be like that Al Ma’unah. They’re the ones who are quite similar to the militant groups who are far out and really want to change something and they thought theirs was the right way – which is quite wrong. Not by blowing up temples and killing people like that.

Kakiseni: So you’ve basically found your sane realm in film and theatre?
Lee (laughing) : Yeah, yeah, don’t worry.

Kakiseni: What about budget? All your films are very low budget. Where do you get your funding from and how do you work around it?
Lee: The money for my first movie was raised from my parents, my wife, Amir (Muhammad), and a few friends. I got a digital camera and started shooting. Snipers was a conventional movie, except for the fact that it was low budget and it had theatre actors.

Ah Beng Returns was so cheap – it was not more that 1K – because of the fact that all the actors were friends and I kept the logistics simple, it was (done) all in my house. To solve this problem, I hope that I can get people to sponsor my third screenplay, with a very clear knowledge that it’s not a profitable endeavour. So we are approaching individuals and councils. Worse comes to worse, if there’s nothing forthcoming, then I’ll shoot it damn cheap.

Kakiseni: All of your actors are doing it for free?
Lee: Yes, all of them. Free. The only thing is that I feed them, nothing else. That’s one thing good about all these years of working in theatre. I’ve met all these quite nice people who are willing to try stuff.

Kakiseni: What is your third screenplay going to be about?
Lee: It’s called The Pretenders, and it’s going to be in Chinese dialects again. At the moment, the draft synopsis is about the last seven days on earth after an alien invasion. They have given us puny little human beings seven more days to live before they vapourise this whole world out of the universe. So, we cut to the story of this film director and this burnt out actor, and this painter, dancer … and the fact is that these seven days is about these few artistic persons, people like me and people in theatre. We will see what they will do in these seven days in order to achieve their dreams. So in these seven days you see them becoming mean and vicious, cheating people and conning people just to achieve their dreams.

Kakiseni: So, you’re writing about you and your friends.
Lee: Yes … they all want to get a part in a movie, wanting to be famous, and then you’ll see all these arty, elitist people who are supposed to be intelligent turning into vicious conmen. To me, I think the problem is that people have this idea that just because they’ve done theatre studies that they have a bit of class in them – but no, they are human, they can do bad things. So, in these seven days we’ll analyse these characters in the worst way I can imagine. But at the end of the day, everybody dies because their time is up and the aliens have won.

Kakiseni: And you’ve basically formed characters from people you know?
Lee: Yeah, but don’t mention that (laughs) . Actually no … but from interesting characters I’ve seen. I don’t know them in real life, except that they are very interesting. So, I’m trying to use characters like that but turn them more vicious and mean. But I also want to make them more real, like in a situation, they have to react like a normal person to achieve their own dream. I observe and fictionalise them. There’s an actor, a film director, a cameraman, a dancer, a painter, and an evil producer.

Kakiseni: You’re taking bad things out of people you’ve met and encountered and then putting them into a fictionalised character? Lee: Actually, it’s both. I’ve created these characters as fiction, but the evil producer – that is a real person whom I do not come in contact with anymore. He’s evil, all that’s on his mind is money, money, money – very evil, lah … a Hongkie. I’ve based this producer for this movie on him. People like that are so disgraceful to the industry. That’s why you get bad TV drama scenes, because of producers like that. The quality does not matter anymore, it’s just the money they can earn.

Kakiseni: Is this going to be shot in the style of Ah Beng Returns? I’ve noticed that you’ve got that style where someone’s about to be shot, but you don’t see it; someone’s about to be burnt alive, but you don’t see it … Lee (laughing) : That’s quite true, eh … because no budget, not like Stanley Kubrik or Martin Scorcese where ‘Boom’ and all the brains come out. One fact is that it is low budget, but it’s an alternative way to show people dying in a movie. Actually, when I finished Ah Beng Returns, it was so hard to edit. Because there was no screenplay and it was improvisation throughout. And I found out that I’d made a movie that is an anti-cinema movie. The movie is so anti-cinema that you don’t hear gunshots, you don’t see people (getting shot) … For The Pretenders, I think I’ll try different stuff. I don’t think it will be so stylised.

Kakiseni: Do you want to deal with blood and gore in the future?
Lee: I can’t tell by now. Seriously speaking, after these two (feature-length films) and all the shorts I’ve done, I haven’t really defined my style yet and I don’t want to lock myself into one genre. But I’ll try to do something with less blood and gore, or none at all.

Kakiseni: Are you worried about your limited budget?
Lee: No, I have no ideas about making movies and releasing them in TGV. My movies are for people who want to watch something different. The audience should be left like that – they should come open-minded, or they could come with a mindset. I can’t force them to come and watch, especially with something like Ah Beng. All I want to do is to make lots and lots of movies … until they ignore me. The danger of the camera unleashes a new breed of terror like me. I intend to keep on shooting. And people will realise that you can make movies without much money.

Kakiseni: Is your wife (a major funder) involved in theatre as well?
Lee: No, she’s totally out of this evil industry. She’s working in Singapore.

Kakiseni: You’re living apart, but she’s someone who has been so nice in supporting you. That’s very good of her …
Lee (laughs): Yes, she’s too good.

Kakiseni: Does she watch your films?
Lee: No, my wife hasn’t seen any yet. She still has got the perception that I’m making conventional movies. In some ways, I’m cheating on her.

Kakiseni: So she doesn’t know what she’s really funding?
Lee (still laughing): No. But I’ve told her it’s for the good of mankind.

Kakiseni: And have you been hassled about censorship by the authorities?
Lee: No, because I’m not famous. I’m so unprolific, I’ve had no big headlines, I don’t have SB following me around, and I don’t get into this political crap.

Kakiseni: Regarding the linguistic content of a movie such as Ah Beng, are you not worried about people not following the story?
Lee: I did it to show disunity among one community. Because of the language, it again separates the people.

Kakiseni: And are you worried about your limited audience not being able to understand your films?
Lee: At the end of the day, it’s you who will decide what you believe. But if you ask me, I’ll still let you know why I put in that shot. I think sometimes, things should not be explained, the audience should think for themselves. They should not have to be spoon-fed like in Pearl Harbour with its special effects.

In Beautiful Man, some people were quite disgusted because the man is fat and he’s tied up. The idea came from Mun Lee, and she said it was about people who couldn’t express themselves. But when I watched it, I thought: ‘how do you define a good or bad movie?’ What is beautiful to some people may not be beautiful to others. I think people are too taken away with that (notions of beauty).

For now, I have full control over my films – writing, directing, shooting, editing. The actors give their opinions sometimes … which I have the privilege of not accepting. But I’ve been advised to let off a bit more. It’s not that I don’t want to do that, but it’s because I can’t afford to.