[3] Liu obtained American citizenship when he was 14 years old after his mother moved him to Rockford, Illinois and remarried.
[2] He referred to Liu and his brother and mother using racial slurs and subjected them to various types of abuse.
[2] Liu stated that he is no longer fluent in Mandarin as he once was because his stepfather did not let him and his mother communicate with each other using the language.
[2] He was first inspired by film-making after seeing First Love when he was 15, a video produced by Transworld Skateboarding Magazine that was mostly shot on 16 mm film.
[10] His second documentary feature, All These Sons, which focuses on gun violence in Chicago as it follows two Chicago-area programs targeting at-risk young men, was co-directed with Joshua Altman and premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival,[11] where Liu and Altman won the jury award for Best Cinematography, Documentary Feature.