Wong Kar-wai BBS is a Hong Kong film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films are characterised by nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, and vivid cinematography involving bold, saturated colours.
Wong Kar-wai Quotes
1. “We love what we can’t have, and we can’t have what we love.”
— Wong Kar-wai
2. “Love is all a matter of timing. It’s no good meeting the right person too soon or too late.”
— Wong Kar-wai
3. “Most of my films deal with people who are stuck in certain routines and habits that don’t make them happy. They want to change, but they need something to push them. I think it’s mostly love that causes them to break their routines and move on.”
— Wong Kar-wai
4. “We’re all unlucky in love sometimes. When I am, I go jogging. The body loses water when you jog, so you have none left for tears.”
— Wong Kar-wai
5. “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.”
— Wong Kar-wai
6. “I’m not coming from film school, I learned cinema in the cinema watching films.”
— Wong Kar-wai
7. “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.”
— Wong Kar-wai
8. “Normally, filmmakers would just write a script and cast people to act as certain characters in the story. But in my way of doing things, I have the actors in my mind already, so I’m trying to borrow something that’s unique to them. The characters have a very natural connection to the actors themselves.”
— Wong Kar-wai
9. “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. But this is the starting point, and the best way is to not to fit into this uniform but to make this uniform a part of yourself.”
— Wong Kar-wai
10. “I’m not afraid to delay the schedule to make sure that this is the film that I want, that this is the best that I can do at that point.”
— Wong Kar-wai
11. “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
12. “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
13. “I never studied film formally at school, but as a kid, I spent most of my time in cinemas.”
— Wong Kar-wai
14. “I never had a problem with genre because a genre actually is like a uniform – you put yourself into a certain uniform.”
— Wong Kar-wai
15. “I always think to shoot action scenes is not really about the stunts. It’s more about an expression and about imagination.”
— Wong Kar-wai
16. “People are very surprised when they come to Hong Kong after seeing my films, because my version of it is quite different than Hong Kong in reality.”
— Wong Kar-wai
17. “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.”
— Wong Kar-wai
18. “In a way, 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
19. “Im a big fan of martial arts films, novels and radio programs.”
— Wong Kar-wai
20. “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
21. “There are certain types of genres that are impossible in China. Ghost stories, something too graphic, too violent, and of course if it’s too political. Other than that, it will be fine.”
— Wong Kar-wai
22. “I wanted to know what exactly martial arts is. 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?”
— Wong Kar-wai
23. “I think the martial arts tradition has a big influence on our generation – we all read these novels when we were very young.”
— Wong Kar-wai
