It often takes an outsider to bring in a fresh, new perspective. A marketing graduate with minimal formal training, Ronny Yu had an unexpected #1 hit at the Hong Kong box office with his 1979 cops and robbers debut The Servant, sparking a prolific run of action/fantasy thrillers throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, including Brandon Lee’s first starring role in Legacy of Rage (1986), and multiple collaborations with Chow Yun-fat. Known domestically as a jack of all trades with a bombastic, frantic style, Yu caught the attention of US executives in 1993 with the success of The Bride With White Hair—a martial arts romance with a unique combination of feverish visuals and frenzied violence—leading the director to a brief but significant career in Hollywood.

His two major US hits, Bride of Chucky (1998) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003), rejuvenated the stagnant Child’s Play, and A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises respectively, earning Yu a cult following—Bride of Chucky was a particularly idiosyncratic entry in an already idiosyncratic series, setting the tone for future installments and building a devoted queer following. Unfortunately, Yu was unable to bring this energy to Snakes On A Plane (2006), exiting the project (and instead making 2006’s Fearless with Jet Li), despite his enthusiasm for the concept, due to creative differences with the production team, much to the chagrin of its lead, Samuel L. Jackson, who, naturally, expressed his displeasure to Yu directly, in floral language.

Now based in Sydney, I spoke with Yu about his continent-hopping career and, of course, Bride of Chucky.

FELIX HUBBLE: I read that you got an early film education by watching up to three or four movies a day at the cinema in Hong Kong, is that right?

RONNY YU: My father introduced me to the Western cowboys and Indians movies when I was like four or five. During the holidays, he would take me to see a movie almost every day. I grew up watching films like High Noon (1952), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Wild Bunch (1969). I just loved the action, the shootouts and bar fighting and all that.

FH: I would say that influence is there in your later films especially. Did you have favorite directors back then?

RY: Only when I started getting older, in my teenage years, did I start to look back and try recognize the director. I think Sam Peckinpah was the one who really blew me away—the way he handles action, the way he stages action, the way he edits an action sequence, and then the slow motion—all that registered heavily in my mind. And then Kurosawa’s movies, like Seven Samurai (1954).

FH: How did you end up at Ohio University?

RY: Laughs. I went to high school in England, and then after I finished high school I really wanted to go to America for university. At that time, I was asking my father because I needed his financial support. I really wanted to study film at UCLA, because I was always so fascinated by film. But he said no. He hated the idea. He thought filmmakers were goofballs, people who don’t take life seriously. Bu he said, “If you really want to understand America, you go to the heartland. You don’t go to the east coast or the west coast.” So that’s how I ended up in Ohio, in university. Laughs. In Athens, Ohio. And he was totally correct. I got to understand what America is all about.

FH: So you didn’t do a film degree?

RY: No, I ended up studying marketing, communications, because he wouldn’t allow it, unless I paid for it myself, and of course, I didn’t have the money. But I attended a lot of the film courses without any sort of credit. I was just curious. At night, I just walked in, and I would listen to people talk about film, and I got to watch a lot of free movies.

FH: So you head back to Hong Kong, and then you cut your teeth with The Servant, an independent production that became a surprise success.

RY: It was such a surprise. Because I knew nothing, I really knew nothing about the craft of filmmaking, I had just watched a lot of movies and read a lot of comic books—Superman, Spider-Man, all that. I just translated all those images in my head into the movie that I made. Every time I encountered a scene, I would say, “How would Kurosawa set this up?” But later, thanks to my first editor [Yee Shun-wong]—he’s the one who really got me into the craft. He gave me a book to read. The book was called Film Grammar. Laughs. He said, “You better read this back to front, before you make your second movie.” I did, I read it. And I said, “Oh okay, so there’s a grammar, there’s a film language, there’s certain techniques about why you want to place a camera there and all that...” You see, you guys today are very lucky, you know! Anybody can just—you don’t need to go to film school, you can just go to YouTube. You learn everything, inside out.