Kim Ki-duk

“A director should not define everything. For me, the movie is a form of a question I pose to the others or to the audience. I want to ask their opinion on my point of view and discuss it with them.”

“I don't have the ability to find a middle ground with my audiences, and I know this too well.”

“I try not to interpret things of the world into a single meaning. Rather, I try the opposite.”

“An artist's creative energy is ephemeral as a flower. It blooms and soon dies. No artist is great forever. Personally, I think I reached my peak in 2004 when I shot 'Samaria' and '3-Iron'.”

“I always concentrate on respecting human beings and their lives and the meaning within their lives, and I believe that is something people around the world can appreciate.”

“I don't think that the spoken words solve everything. Sometimes silence delivers truer feelings while the words can distort the meaning in some situations.”

“I don't really know how I grow. I can only see the changes when I look at the films.”

“A person's current personality of love, hatred, jealousy, rage or a murderous intent and so on is formed upon genetic elements, education, the environment and a family a person grows in.”

“Yes I did study to be a preacher, but I didn't finish.”

“I always ask myself one question: what is human? What does it mean to be human? Maybe people will consider my new films brutal again. But this violence is just a reflection of what they really are, of what is in each one of us to certain degree.”

“Many people who have watched 'Pieta' have said my filmmaking has become more objective.”