38 Quotes by Kim Jee-woon

I work from opposites to opposites, in a way. It's finding one thing and then doing the other from film to film. So maybe after 'I Saw the Devil,' I might do something like 'I Saw the Angel' or perhaps something warm and happy.

I'm someone who has a singular goal in making films; I want to tell a story. There are certain stories that I want to tell. Hollywood's never really been the ultimate goal for me.

I've made the film 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird,' which was an Eastern Western film. Obviously, the Western film is American and American only; there's really no Western genre over in Asia.

In Korea, the director has the final word. If the director makes a decision, that decision is final. In Hollywood, every decision needs to go through the producer, the studio, and sometimes even the main actor. There is a certain procedure that needs to be followed.

In Korea, the director is on top, and the power flows down vertically. On the set, I love to come up with ideas on the spot. But in Hollywood, if I were to come up with a certain idea on set, the idea had to be taken to all these different people who had to agree.

Lionsgate and Lorenzo di Bonaventura saw my Korean Western-style film, 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird,' and probably felt that I would be right for 'The Last Stand,' which could be classified as a modern Western.

Of course, 'The Last Stand' has a villain who is traveling to the border to fulfill his own desires, but it's more about the main character. The Sheriff putting a stop to this villain and defending his town. 'The Last Stand' is more about protecting something. About protecting a value.

One quality that a director needs to acquire in Hollywood is to understand the system and figure out how to work within the system to express one's own ideas.

I'd like to give the audience what they've always wanted to see and also I want to give the audience what they've never seen. It's these two things I'm striving for.