Wong Kar-wai

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

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

“I never studied film formally at school, but as a kid, I spent most of my time in cinemas.”

“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.”

“This is what the difference is between Hong Kong and Chinese cinema - Chinese cinema was made for their own communities. It was for propaganda. But Hong Kong made films to entertain, and they know how to communicate with international audiences.”

“It is always good to work with a very regular group of people because we know how high we can fly and what are the parameters, and it becomes very enjoyable.”

“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.”

“The industry and support in China has really matured because there are so many productions there. At the same time, there's been a lot of changes in the market, which I think also has enabled productions like 'The Grandmaster' to happen and to be possible to shoot in China.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The reason it takes me so long to make a film, the reason it gets so difficult, is that I'm trying to think of every film as the last one I will ever make so it can be the best it can possibly be. I don't want to have regrets or excuses or think, 'I can do better next time.'”

“When it's time to let go, I don't look back, and I start another project as soon as possible. One thing I remind myself is that I don't want to Photoshop my past.”

“At film festivals, I put on my sunglasses and go to sleep because I don't want to see my films again.”

“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.”

“Because we don't have a lot of light, because we have a very low budget, we have to adjust the speed of our camera to get the effect that we want. So sometimes this is the way we work, and the result of the filming becomes a kind of a style.”

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

“'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.”

“For 'Chungking Express,' the way we shot the film was all handheld and with all this existing light, and that became very popular. Everybody thought it was cool.”

“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.”