Top 33 Wong Kar-wai Quotes

My films are never about what Hong Kong is like, or anything approaching a realistic portrait, but what I think about Hong Kong and what I want it to be.

Some actors like encouragement. Some actors prefer to have pressure. And sometimes, for some actors, its better to give your comment by silence, because they are so skillful, so gifted, that they understand without talking too much.

One’s memories aren’t what actually happened – they’re very subjective. You can always make it much better, right?

I think, to be a director, sometimes you need to have certain hunches – you have to believe in some gut feeling.

I came to Hong Kong when I was five, but we didn’t have any relatives in Hong Kong. My mom is a big movie fan, and she watched all kinds of movies, so when I was a kid, basically, we went to watch a movie every day.

My mother has a very big family in Shanghai, so I have, like, almost 40 cousins, so we stayed together all the time. So by the time I get to Hong Kong, I become the only child and the only one surrounded by adults, you know.

I am just the band leader, and I just keep everything in tune.

In much the same way Ip Man embodied the struggles of the Chinese people, I wanted Gong Er to represent the changing role of women.

In our case, we have no script. So the only people we can work with are people who have been working with us in the past, and they know we are going to do something; it’s kind of a trust.

The Chinese government promised Hong Kong ’50 years, and change.’ And 50 years later, after 1997, will be 2046; I think, ‘Well, that’s a very interesting promise.’ So I want to make a film about promise.

I think of action as a dance. It’s a riddle; it should have emotion in it.

‘Ashes of Time’ was my third film, and as a young director at that point, it’s not very often that you have the chance to make a big martial arts film, so of course I jumped at this opportunity.

Somehow, we fall in love with the films and don’t want to let go, but financially and physically, we cannot afford it.

I was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong the year I was five.

What’s so great about inspiration is sometimes it finds you when you’re not looking.

It used to be when you eat, you eat with people. But instant noodles are so instant that people eat by themselves. And it’s a very convenient way of eating but also a very lonely way of eating.

The laboratory where we stored all our negatives went bankrupt overnight following the Asian economic crisis in 1997. So, on short notice, we had to retrieve all the materials in the middle of the night before the debtor-receiver took over the laboratory the next morning.

I’ve always wanted to make a film about the Tong Wars, the rioting and the crime factions in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early part of the last century.

I’m not very aware of styles. We never talk about styles before we start shooting, or even during shooting, because I think the film will bring you there.

Sometimes, we have to turn our camera to a mirror to shoot something, and people think, ‘Oh, that’s very stylish.’ Yes it is, but at the same time, we did it because we are shooting in a very small space, and that was our only option.

I think one day I can make a book about coffee shops in Hong Kong. I spent almost most of my time in coffee shops, in different coffee shops.

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it.

Americans always see China through the looking glass, and I think it’s about time – with technology and of the growing economic relationship between these two countries – I think it’s natural and better for all of us to have a better understanding of each other.

Sometimes, when you’re on the streets, certain music inspires you, and then you have a vision. But, at the end of the day, it’s a synthesis of visions, so you have to think, as a director, of a scene, or how to deliver a line, or how do this visually.

I have an image of Shanghai, which is quite different from other directors, I think. The story of Shanghai should happen in back alleys.

Each production has certain circumstances that will bring you to a certain way of making it. It is not intentional, it is not an artistic decision, the way we make films, it is the way we address to our problems.

I’m not coming from film school. I learned cinema in the cinema watching films, so you always have a curiosity. I say, ‘Well, what if I make a film in this genre? What if I make this film like this?’

To me, romantic means, um, you follow your heart more than your mind. Sometimes when you’re shooting a film, you have to follow your heart.

I don’t do rehearsal. Some directors prefer to do rehearsal – readings before the actual shooting – but I don’t like this process because I think there are certain things that are so spontaneous, and they cannot happen twice.

During shooting, you have the idea, like, of this certain dress on this actress, but it’s not to fit, so you have to make all of these alterations and modifications. So in a way, I build the characters with the cast, and it’s sort of custom-made, the whole process, and then you have to make all of these adjustments.

When I look at ‘Fallen Angels,’ I realize it is not a film that is truly about Hong Kong. It’s more like my Hong Kong fantasy. I want Hong Kong to be quiet, with less people.

In most kung fu films, they want to create a hero who’s always fighting a bad guy. In the story of Ip Man, he’s not fighting physical opponents. He’s fighting the ups and downs of his life.

I sometimes compare making a film to cooking. Some dishes need to be stewed, while others need to be fried.