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

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" 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.' "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Heritage is something martial-arts films don't often talk about. "

" 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. "

" 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?' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" What makes international cinema so interesting is that each territory has its own sensibility. When you look at an Indian or French film, there's a certain flavor. And even though the language is different, if the film is successful, it has something very common and understandable. "

" When you look at martial arts films, the later ones became more and more exaggerated. It's like, wow, is martial arts only a show? "

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

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

" 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. "

" '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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" The original title for 'In the Mood for Love' was called 'A Story About Food.' The idea was to tell a love story through different courses. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

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