We all need stories. What happens in our daily lives changes our stories. - Wong Kar-wai

You try to cope with the mass audience, but in fact you are not doing something for them—I would be fighting with myself. I thought, I don’t have to make big films, I can make small films that I can be happy with. I can find my own audience.

My ideas about writing changed as soon as I started directing. As a writer, I wanted my scripts to be perfect and fully formed. As a director, I know there are always factors beyond my control. Many things in any film cannot be planned concretely in advance. The best you can do is visualise what you want, and then respond to what’s there once you go on set. Nowadays I start from a fairly loose script and tend to write the dialogue on the day of shooting.

It was my dream! 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?