In the beginning of the Q&A session, Xu Chuanhai, the Director of No Liar, No Cry , greeted the audience by thanking the audience from his heart for coming to see his film on busy week day. Andy Shi, the Executive Producer showed his sincere appreciation to the Japanese and the international audiences who came to see the film.

Q: I understand that you are not from the Film School. Please tell us how you came about to direct this film?

Xu Chuanhai: I haven’t gone to a film school. I went to Xian Jiaotong University in Xian, but I have loved the film for a longtime and dreamed of making it one day. I studied on my own and learned as much as I could about film. I thought that I needed the working experience and participated in the film production and studied how the shooting was done from the beginning to the end. I actually shot a digital film of my own. One of the film that I made is titled Zipper. Because I was a science major, I had an ability to learn. I collected all kinds of books on the film and studied it.

Q: What were your reasons to make this film with director?

Andy Shi: I think that a man who can direct a film also has great abilities to tell good stories. He is a good conversationalist in private life as well. I believe that the medium of the film is communication with the use of visual and audio senses. Member of the film staff and I read the screenplay that the Xu Chuanhai wrote and were very impressed with the quality of the story. The other thing that impressed us as well was that the story really took place. He added few things that he saw and heard to the occurrences that actually happened and completed the screenplay.

We also saw the films that he has participated in and also saw the short film that he has directed. Some were better than others, but I thought that he was a very talented director and that is the reason why we decided to work together. We were satisfied when we saw the completed film. Thank to you all, I was able to come to Tokyo with the director.

Q: I have an experience of travelling the Silk Road from Beijing to the Gobi Desert. When I saw your film, I remembered the scenery. Can you tell us whether you had a rough time during the filming and also tell us the episode about the hardship?

Xu Chuanhai: Yes, the filming was extremely difficult. The reason why I say this is because the filming took place during September. The differences between temperatures during nights and days are extreme at the location. It is 45 degrees during the afternoon but the temperature of the ground rises to 70~80 degrees. The first thing that the staff and cast have to bear was the heat. It becomes extremely cold during the nights. We wore Chinese large padded over coats to stay warm during the night shoots.

The filming location was near Turpan and the wind is very strong there. When the strong wind blows, even the train is blown off the tracks. We really had difficulties with the wind because itis so strong that you can’t keep standing.

I have an experience of living in Gobi Desert for about four years and knew about the place very well. I made sure to tell the staff and cast to not to go wandering on their own. I told them to be aware that there was a strong chance of losing their lives. It is a kind of place that must be taken seriously to survive. There was a famous Chinese geologist in the 80’s, which became lost in the Gobi but his corpse nor was his bone is found.

Q: There was a scene in the film where your leading character’s son sings a song. He sang very well and I wanted to know whether he was a professional singer.

Xu Chuanhai: He is an actor. All Chinese actors sing very well!

Q: The example of a classic film that deals with the money issues would be John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and there is also a contemporary Korean film , A Million . China as well as Japan are unequal society. This film begins with the theme about money and in the end it isn’t just about money but it develops into the trouble about water. The water becomes the most important thing. Please give us your view about the modern society. Please also tell us about the influence which modern society had on you or your film?

Xu Chuanhai: The answer to your first question is that you are absolutely correct. There’s been a rapid economic progress in China and I have satirized the trend of the current Chinese society in which people would do anything for their greed to attain money or wealth. I tried to depict the idea that the people should think more about craziness of greed and should think over what they have forgotten about the feelings of people and the humanity. I’ve also wanted to show that otherwise people would hurt or torment the people around them.

And to the answer to next question, I have a bad habit of not being able to remember the titles or names of the directors. I really become stimulated with the story and the thoughts that the directors have put in to their films. But I forget film titles.

Q: What do you have in mind for the next film?

Xu Chuanhai: The screenplay is already written. The next film would be similar to this one and will be a story about the people that live in the current society. The characters have glum feelings about the society but they still try to make their efforts to live. The thieves appear again and entangle these innocent people. I want to continue making series on thieves. The Chinese title will be literally “Who’s afraid of being targeted by the thieves”.

Q: What happens to the killer that became the reason for incident?

Xu Chuanhai: First of all, there was a need establish a scene in which the big boss comes to visit Old Pi several times and asks to sell the gold mine or dig the mine together. He appears once in the sauna or massage parlor and tells Old Pi “I’m going to hire a killer and kill you.” I wanted express that there were people that do anything for money in China by depicting the character of Big Boss. There are really evil people like that in China and not only do they scramble around making money with real estate or stocks but there are also bad people working as middle man for garlics, cotton and potato markets.

Q: I thank you and would like you two to give us few words for the audience.

Xu Chuanhai: I appreciate the audiences and people of the media to be present here today. I hope you found my film interesting.

Andy Shi: I would like to thank the Tokyo International Film Festival and Mr. Ishizaka and all the audiences that came here today.