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" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Love
Mood
Original
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" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Government
Revolution
People
" I never studied film formally at school, but as a kid, I spent most of my time in cinemas. "
Wong Kar-wai
Film
Most
School
" I am just the band leader, and I just keep everything in tune. "
Wong Kar-wai
Band
Am
Everything
" I was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong the year I was five. "
Wong Kar-wai
Hong Kong
Five
Year
" 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?' "
Wong Kar-wai
Say
You
School
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Last
Wanted
Early
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Time
Think
Success
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Support
Possible
Think
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Like
Twice
Think
" Somehow, we fall in love with the films and don't want to let go, but financially and physically, we cannot afford it. "
Wong Kar-wai
Let Go
Love
Go
" To make films, it always begins with two words: what and how. First of all, you have to find a story, or what are you going to tell? And you have to find a way to tell it visually. "
Wong Kar-wai
Way
You
Words
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Rich
Born
Country
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Difference
Own
Know
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Family
Child
Time
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Good
Fly
Group
" To make a film like 'The Grandmaster,' I know I'm not going to make just a standard kung-fu film; it's not going to be just tricks or like wire works. So I spent seven years on the road interviewing different schools and a lot of real grandmasters from Chinese martial arts. "
Wong Kar-wai
Arts
Know
Like
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Start
Never
Film
" One's memories aren't what actually happened - they're very subjective. You can always make it much better, right? "
Wong Kar-wai
Memories
You
Right
" I think, to be a director, sometimes you need to have certain hunches - you have to believe in some gut feeling. "
Wong Kar-wai
Feeling
Gut
Need
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Time
Think
Space
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Normal
Film
Change
" I sometimes compare making a film to cooking. Some dishes need to be stewed, while others need to be fried. "
Wong Kar-wai
Others
Film
Cooking
" I think of action as a dance. It's a riddle; it should have emotion in it. "
Wong Kar-wai
Dance
Action
Riddle
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Night
Morning
Crisis
" 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.' "
Wong Kar-wai
Think
Best
Better
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Coffee
Day
I Can
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
You
Way
People
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Work
Style
Speed
" 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. "
Wong Kar-wai
Time
Technology
Relationship
" 1936 is a very important year: a golden time for martial arts, right before the Japanese invasion. "
Wong Kar-wai
Time
Right
Arts