British actor Joe Alwyn stars as the American soldier Billy Lynn in Ang Lee's new film Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, to be released on Friday. CHINA DAILY

Ang Lee is reigniting China's passion and respect for movies. From Sunday to Tuesday, the Oscar-winning director toured Beijing and Shanghai and spoke more than he has in public for the past four years.

"Movies are my religion, a harbor for my soul. I don't see filmmaking as a job, but as a way for me to be innovative and to keep my blood flowing," says the director, who took home the best director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain in 2006 and Life of Pi in 2013.

Lee's tour was to promote Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, his feature that is shot in 3-D, 4-K resolution and at 120 frames per second－five times the pace of a regular movie.

In cinema history spanning 120 years, the film is the first feature-length, globally-released title to use such boundary-pushing technology.

Only five cinemas in the world－two of which are in Beijing and Shanghai, respectively－can screen the highest resolution version of the cinematic adaptation of Ben Fountain's best-selling, award-winning novel.

The film, about the 19-year-old American soldier Billy Lynn, played by British newbie Joe Alwyn, chronicles the soldier's return from the Iraq battlefield to take part in a Thanksgiving Day National Football League game in Texas.

The film is not an ode to a war hero, or a simple anti-war movie. But through the film, Lee expects audiences to ponder about humanity.