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

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" 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. "

" 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. "

" 1936 is a very important year: a golden time for martial arts, right before the Japanese invasion. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

" '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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I didn't know anything about martial arts. I'm a big fan, but I never practiced martial arts. "

" I'm a big fan of martial arts films, novels and radio programs. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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'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. "

" 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. "