Nicolas Cage praises Chinese cinema, looks forward to performing in China

"I am attracted by Chinese cinema because it is good," Hollywood star Nicolas Cage told Xinhua on Friday during the ongoing Venice Film Festival on the Lido island in Italy.

The Academy Award-winning actor said that Chinese cinema has many "great actors such as Liang Chaowei and Zhou Runfa" working with "great directors" for "great movies."

"I have a great relation with China and I am proud of that," he highlighted. Cage went on to say that he has visited China several times.

"There is a great flow in the conversation that I have with the people there, they are always very warm to me and I am very thankful," he stressed.

The 49-year-old actor also told Xinhua that he is "going to be in China in about three weeks to play in a Chinese financed film called Outcast," an action adventure movie that will also star Hayden Christensen.

"I am looking forward to starting this, as I have not made a movie with China yet but I was told that the experience is really a good one, and they have fantastic food on the set all day," he said with a smile.

In the Venice Film Festival, Cage is playing a hard-drinker in his latest film, David Gordon Green's brutal American South drama "Joe," premiering in competition.

The actor was brought back to his indie roots in the role as the hard-living Joe Ransom, who is trying to dodge his instincts for trouble until he meets a hard-luck kid who awakens in him a tender-hearted protector.

The film, based on American novelist Larry Brown's eponymous 1991 novel, portrays the desperate lives of poverty-stricken laborers in a rough land of Texas where violence reigns.

For the title role, Cage said that he focused on finding the truth in the performance trying to make the character come to life.

"I read the book, which allowed me to find the character and align myself with the director's vision," he added.

Cage, who called Joe "one of the most memorable" films he has worked on in his nearly 35-year career, also said in a news conference that he has no intention to retire any time soon.

The movie is among the 20 titles competing for the top Golden Lion prize, to be awarded in the Italian water city on Sept. 7.

"Film performance is a part of me," Cage highlighted. "That is not to say I do not have fantasies of living a life of contemplation and sitting in the sun, but I need to work," the actor added.