IN PERSON, Ang Lee comes across very much as he did when he accepted his 2005 Best Director Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain”—modest, serene, affable. At a recent Q & A (co-sponsored by the Asian American Journalists Association) at New York’s Sunshine Theater, he spoke in affectingly imperfect English about his latest movie “Lust, Caution,” whose topic is anything but modest.

ON AUDIENCE REACTION: Lee, a Taiwan native, said he had been most anxious about the reaction of audiences there. “But they liked it right away,” Lee said. With the sex scenes toned down, the main controversy in Taiwan was the touchy subject of Chinese collaborators who betrayed their countrymen during the Japanese occupation. As for the American audience, Lee said, “I can’t really tell how people respond here, because it’s such a mixed genre, and culture. Some audiences connect right away, some take longer.”

ON THE SOURCE MATERIAL: “Lust, Caution,” is based on Eileen Chang’s story of the same title. “I had read her work before,” he said. “But when I read this story, it didn’t look like her writing. I very much related to the woman character. And the sexuality got to me.”

ON THE INFAMOUS SEX SCENES: The U.S. version received an NC-17 rating for its graphic and violent sex scenes. In response to the assertion that the rough sex in the film is somehow un-Chinese, Lee said: “The Chinese are not shy. We have the highest population in the world.”

ON FILMMAKING: The veteran of 11 films had this to say about his technique: “I smell around to make sure I did the right thing.”

ON ETHNIC IDENTITY: Lee has lived in the U.S. for 28 years but he waxed poetic (and atmospheric) about his true home: “My root is somewhere in the air.”

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Lily Huang is a writer living in Brooklyn.