"Being a military historian, I was really blown away by the depiction that [Stanley] Kubrick had of trench life. But more importantly, I was immersed in the moral quagmire that Col. Dax, played by Kirk Douglass, experienced in the film. There’s a moment when somebody looks down at a cockroach and says, “You see that cockroach?” He says something like, “In an hour, he’ll have more relevance than I do.” And [another character] steps on the cockroach and says, “Not anymore.” Also, it was a very revolutionary shooting style that Kubrick presented, with his long tracking shots and his use of close-up wide lenses that I found very attractive. I first saw that film when I was a cadet at West Point."

"Final Fight This was my second film as director and it was made in same style as my first film, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. I got to work with my father, who first got me into filmmaking. Since I was still just starting out, the budget and schedule were very tight. And at that point, people were still figuring out the kung fu genre, so we were really left to figure things out on our own. All the hard work paid off and the film was a huge success in Asia. It made drunken boxing popular again to the point where wushu started practicing it again. It made Jackie Chan a star and it got me work for years to come."

"As a bass player and singer I liked Jack Bruce’s style. And then there was Clapton. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was singing what song, but this really influential on a generation of musicians, as was Jimi Hendrix – but I discovered Cream slightly before Hendrix. I liked both sides of Cream – the jamming and the songs – and Paul and l used to play music like that with jamming and long solos. I lost interest in Clapton after Cream, because I liked him best when he was playing through 1000 watts. I do like songs like ‘Layla’, because I’m a songwriter, but I didn’t follow him when he returned specifically to playing the blues. For that I preferred Gary Moore."