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All Quotes by author - Wong Kar-wai
" 1936 is a very important year: a golden time for martial arts, right before the Japanese invasion. "
Time
Right
Arts
" After the Revolution in '49, all the films were propaganda. They serviced the government and carried the message that the government wants to relay to the people. But I think, in the last 10 years, because the film market is opening and there's an expansion of all the cinemas in China, it's now a lot like Hollywood productions. "
Government
Revolution
People
" 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. "
Time
Technology
Relationship
" '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. "
Time
You
Young
" At film festivals, I put on my sunglasses and go to sleep because I don't want to see my films again. "
Sunglasses
Festivals
See
" 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. "
Work
Style
Speed
" Chinese martial artists consider themselves to be gardeners, and it's an honor for them to take care of this garden, to better it and hand it over to the generations that follow. I think that's a very important message in a time when personal achievement seems to be the only criteria of success. "
Time
Think
Success
" 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. "
You
Build
Dress
" 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. "
Circumstances
Decision
Problems
" 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. "
Cool
Way
Shot
" Heritage is something martial-arts films don't often talk about. "
About
Heritage
Often
" I am just the band leader, and I just keep everything in tune. "
Band
Am
Everything
" 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. "
Mom
Watch
Day
" I didn't know anything about martial arts. I'm a big fan, but I never practiced martial arts. "
Know
Anything
Arts
" 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. "
Like
Twice
Think
" I don't want to be a grumpy old man or too pessimistic, because if I have a chance, I would prefer to watch a film in the cinema with an audience on a big screen instead of watching it on a cell phone. It's a very different experience, but somehow I think this form will have its own future and life. "
Experience
Think
Future
" I have an image of Shanghai, which is quite different from other directors, I think. The story of Shanghai should happen in back alleys. "
Story
Image
Different
" I'm a big fan of martial arts films, novels and radio programs. "
Radio
Arts
Big
" 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?' "
Say
You
School
" 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. "
Start
Never
Film
" I never had a problem with genre because a genre actually is like a uniform - you put yourself into a certain uniform. But if you dress up in a police officer's uniform, it doesn't mean that you are an officer; it can mean something else. "
You
Dress
Police
" I never studied film formally at school, but as a kid, I spent most of my time in cinemas. "
Film
Most
School
" 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. "
Life
Create
Fighting
" 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. "
People
Struggles
Way
" 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. "
Normal
Film
Change
" 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. "
Trust
People
Past
" Ip Man was an extraordinary man who lived during extraordinary times. He was born to a rich family when the country was still a monarchy and lived through various civil wars, revolutions, the Japanese invasion, and the establishment of the Republic. "
Rich
Born
Country
" I sometimes compare making a film to cooking. Some dishes need to be stewed, while others need to be fried. "
Others
Film
Cooking
" I started out my career as a screenwriter and quickly discovered that adhering to a script isn't always the best way to make a film. You have to take into consideration the nuances of the characters and what the actors bring to their roles. "
Film
Always
Best
" I think of action as a dance. It's a riddle; it should have emotion in it. "
Dance
Action
Riddle
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