Daigo Kitamura Quotes

It may be no substitute ... and might just be an unwanted favor ... but it meant a lot to you, right? You shouldn't break something that's important to you. Don't ever try to erase your most precious feelings, okay? ~ Hinako Ashihara

Producers don't like the director who ignores their opinion - but I always try not to be the nicest person when making a movie. It's easy to do that. Just say 'Yes sir', Alright', 'Okay' - but they're not seeing the movie because if they can, they should be directing the movie. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

Every romance requires a backdrop and an audience, even - or perhaps especially - the genuine ones, romance is not something that a couple can be expected to conjure by themselves, you and another, the two of you together, not jut once but again and again, love in general is fortified by its context, nourished by the gaze of others. ~ Katie Kitamura

Didn't I know, he asked, that some people found me a snob? I didn't. Our marriage was formed by the things Christopher knew and the things I did not. This was not simply a question of intellect, although in that respect Christopher again had the advantage, he was without a doubt a clever man. It was a question of things withheld, information that he had, and that I did not. In short, it was a question of infidelities - betrayal always puts one partner in the position of knowing, and leaves the other in the dark. ~ Katie Kitamura

Wherever I make a movie, no matter what size it is, it's always about a straightforward communication with the producer. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

It doesn't matter where you make movies or what the size of the movie you make is. It's a very hard job - especially director. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

How many times are we offered the opportunity to rewrite the past and therefore the future, to reconfigure our present personas - a widow rather than a divorcee, faithful rather faithless? The past is subject to all kinds of revision, it is hardly a stable field, and every alteration in the past dictates an alteration in the future. Even a change in our conception of the past can result in a different future, different to the one we planned. ~ Katie Kitamura

A tourist - almost by definition a person immersed in prejudice, whose interest was circumscribed, who admired the weathered faced and rustic manners of the local inhabitants, a perspective entirely contemptible but nonetheless difficult to avoid. I would have irritated myself in their position. By my presence alone, I reduced their home to a backdrop for my leisure, it became picturesque, quaint, charming, words on the back of a postcard or a brochure. Perhaps, as a tourist, I even congratulated myself on my taste, my ability to perceive this charm, certainly Christopher would have done so, it was not Monaco, it was not Saint-Tropez, this delightful rural village was something more sophisticated, something unexpected. ~ Katie Kitamura

The Hollywood system has its own problems. Movie making is never an easy job. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

life rarely finds its exact likeness in a novel, that is hardly fiction's purpose, ~ Katie Kitamura

If I could finance my own movies, I would be doing it. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

Hollywood industry people are very spoiled. I don't think they can adjust to the insane, no-money, super-hard working tradition of Japanese filmmaking. I don't think any American can go through that. They don't want to work more than twelve hours and they want Saturday and Sunday off. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

I can attest to the fact that life is more fun if you can ignore outside opinions. ~ DAIGO UMEHARA

In the end, what is a relationship but two people, and between two people there will always be room for surprises and misapprehensions, things that cannot be explained. Perhaps another way of putting it is that between two people, there will always be room for failures of imagination. ~ Katie Kitamura

I brought in two genius guys from Korea. Guys who did my favorite movies like Oldboy and The Man from Nowhere. It was fun working with them. Even though they don't speak Japanese and I don't speak Korean, I knew from day one we were speaking the same language because they love my work and I love theirs. We instantly connected. There was zero frustration. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

I don't really consider myself a horror director or a violent director at all. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

People were capable of living their lives in a state of permanent disappointment, there were plenty of people who did not marry the person they hoped to marry, much less live the life they hoped to live, other people invented new dreams to replace the old ones, finding fresh reasons for discontent. ~ Katie Kitamura

It began with a telephone call from Isabella. She wanted to know where Christopher was, and I was put in the awkward position of having to tell her that I didn't know. To her this must have sounded incredible. I didn't tell her that Christopher and I had separated six months earlier, and that I hadn't spoken to her son in nearly a month. ~ Katie Kitamura

I believe Korea is making the best movies. Only in Korea - you can do whatever you want to without any rating system or whatever. They can make world-class karate movies and make lots of money, which is very important. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

When I finally did sit down in front of the machine - a familiar object, I had seen it daily when we were living together - I was reminded of how abrupt and unnatural death always is, at least as we experience it: always an interruption, always things that are left unfinished. This was manifested in Christopher's laptop, the desktop was covered in an intricate mosaic of files and document, there were at least a hundred different and sometimes oddly named folders - other people's work, internet. You name a folder without thinking, there are obvious names for some - accounts, articles - but others have the quality of junk drawers, you hardly remember their contents, you never imagine that one day someone else would be rummaging through them. ~ Katie Kitamura

There was something terrible about falsely accusing a man of murder, even in the imagination. It was an act of speculation that contaminated everything, once seeded, doubt is almost impossible to dispel, I knew that already from my relationship with Christopher, the marriage had died at the hand of my imagination. Still, I could not help myself. ~ Katie Kitamura

As she observed him, she briefly frowned, it was one of the quandaries a woman sometimes faces, not just a woman, but all of us: she entrances one man without effort, a man who is undesired, who follows her around like a dog, however much he is whipped or abused, while all her efforts to attract and then ensnare another man, the truly desired man, come to naught. Charm is not universal, desire is too often unreciprocated, it gathers and pools in the wrong places, slowly becoming toxic. ~ Katie Kitamura

It was a terrible thing, to love and not know whether you were loved in return, it led to the worst sensations--jealousy, rage, self-loathing--to all these lesser states. ~ Katie Kitamura

I returned to the waiting area. For the first time, I was conscious of being widowed, of lacking the prosecution of a man, it was an entirely atavistic sensation. Here in the lobby of this police station in Greece, I suddenly felt extraneous to the workings of the world, which is to say the world of men, I had grown invisible, standing at the threshold of that door. ~ Katie Kitamura

Everyone has problems ... Everyone faces challenges ... Overcomes them one by one ... And gets a little stronger each time ... ~ Hinako Ashihara