Oliver Stone was described as "an angry young man" ("fen qing"), as the famed director expressed his opposition to some United States government policies at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

"I probably am," the legendary 67-year-old American director responded at a forum on social realism at the festival that ends today. The moderator, Zhang Liming, had introduced him as "fen qing," noting Stone's works criticized (among other things) large sums of money wasted on US prisons, law enforcement and the drug war.

Stone's outspokenness, particularly in his criticizing of his own government, won the hearts of these young people. But back in his own country, his denunciation and critiques of American policies and society have earned him many critics -- financiers, conservatives, democrats, among others. It has placed him in difficult positions from time to time and even hurt his career, making it difficult for him to raise money to make movies like "W." (2008) about US President George W. Bush who ordered the invasion of Iraq and the war that followed.

"I would like to be loved by all people, but I have to stand up for what I believe," Stone told Shanghai Daily in an exclusive interview. "My ability to tell a story and to dramatize is all I have, and that is often taken away from me. They all want me to make big budget movies, and I'm being marginalized, to some degree, a lot."

Stone courts controversy and makes films to protest what he calls the "madness" in the world. Seven of his films were shown during the film festival. Stone also received a lifetime achievement award.

Stone has been both praised as patriotic (that was some time ago) and reviled as biased and anti-American for taking on controversial political issues and criticizing popular culture.

Once he was Hollywood's darling, scoring two Oscars for best director with anti-war films "Platoon" (1986) and "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989) and numerous nominations. Since then, it hasn't been easy.

"Nixon" (1995) was the last Stone-directed film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

"I grew up on the conservative side, and it took me 40 years to wake up, in the 1980s," he explained. "So I started making progressive movies and it took me another 28 years to figure it out. So I started making 'Untold History of the United States' in 2008, with historian Peter Kuznick."

He called the 10-part documentary his most ambitious project and invested his own funds when the series ran over budget. The DVD set will be released in the UK and Australia in July and in the US in October.

He said he hopes the film and the book will be like Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," which sold poorly when it was first published in 1980, but has become an iconic alternative history, changing the way people think about history and teach it.

"The film is a combination of my themes," he said. "This is the main big history of the US from 1900 to 2013. It doesn't resemble the history that was taught to me and is taught to our children in the schools."

He called history as it's currently taught in American high schools "a Disney version," "a PG version," "a sanitized version" and "a triumphalist narrative" in which America is always winning and always right.

"I love America, and I would love it to be the country of how I imagine great people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Thomas Penn and Abraham Lincoln wanted it to be," Stone said.

"I want to remember the good Americans, not the military industrial madman."

The misinterpretation and misunderstanding of what he considers true patriotic intentions is one among many misconceptions about his movies, Stone said.

He added his studio debut "Wall Street" (1987) was an homage to his father who worked on Wall Street and a basic morality tale to capture "the new madness of 1980s, when Ronald Reagan supported financial deregulation, when the money rules and money is king."

"But I was misunderstood," he said. "A lot of young people misunderstood the film and misunderstood me because they didn't have any moral ethics." Instead, they were encouraged and exhilarated by Michael Douglas' portrayal of unscrupulous stock broker Gorden Gekko who famously proclaimed, "Greed is good."

"Natural Born Killers" (1994), Stone's protest against the media landscape in America, was misunderstood again - the long, extravagantly violent scenes were intended to be satirical. He went through many fights with the film board and considered that their cuts "ruined the rhythm of the film."

"The movie was a nightmare, I got so many attacks. People were saying this was realistic violence," he said. "They don't understand the difference. It's ridiculous violence, it's over the top."

When "Alexander" was released in 2004, his intention was misunderstood again. Some critics compared George W. Bush to Alexander and the Iraq war to the emperor's battles.

"There is nothing similar about them," Stone said in Shanghai at the global premier of the film's ultimate cut, a three hour and 20 minute version that is closer to his original intent. He called the 2004 release, two hours and 45 minutes, a "dissatisfying" decision by the studio. The ultimate cut will be released in the US next year.

"I didn't fight hard enough," he said. "This was an important movie for me. It was the biggest and most expensive movie I made and many people attack me for that and it affected my career. But I want to get it right. It took me longer than I expected to discover who Alexander really was."

He explained to the audience how the great emperor was also a product of two strong parents who were constantly fighting.

Because of the plague of misunderstanding over the years, Stone attended every screening of his films while he was in Shanghai and explained himself beforehand. They included episode three "The Bomb" of "Untold History of the United States," "Alexander" Ultimate Cut, and "JFK" (1991).

He also stayed for questions after the screenings. In the case of "Alexander," it was nearly 2am. His staff said he would have stayed longer if it wasn't so late and his schedule wasn't so packed the next morning.

Stone has also made both features and documentaries for people, countries and issues that he says are misunderstood. They include "Salvador" (1986) covering the Salvadoran Civil War, "Comandante" (2003), a documentary with interviews and exchanges between Stone and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and "South of the Border" (2009), a documentary on Venezuela and its president Hugo Chavez.

Stone made a film about China, chapter 10 of the "Untold History of the United States," about the administrations of both Presidents Bush and Barack Obama. It explores US-China relations.

"China is a huge player in the history of the United States and we deal very much with China since the Boxer Rebellions in 1900s," he said. "And we always act as if we were threatened, no matter who we are dealing with. We have dominance in aerial, space, ocean and cyber, but we always act like underdogs in Hollywood movies and call others threats, even though we were often the ones starting it."

He called the case of Edward Snowden, leaker of secret US surveillance programs, "a wonderful example of a whistle blower" who found it difficult to remain in the US.

Asked whether he would like to make a movie about the Snowden affair, Stone said, "it has already been made," referring to Tony Scott's "Enemy of State" (1999), a film about secrets and eavesdropping.

"That's what movies can do best (explaining real life news). They do it dramatically," he said.

Stone himself is writing a script that "hopefully can bring the East and the West closer," and it well might be a love story.

"Only love stories can make connections between Eastern and Western human faces and human hearts, which is essential in order to let the Western audience fall in love with Chinese faces.

"That is how you make a Western audience love Chinese movies," he said. "Not with more investment, more 3D, or to make your movies like Western popcorn films. More money doesn't mean better films."