I don't believe in making movies to cater to a foreign audience. You never know what the reaction is going to be anyhow. At the time I made Maborosi,…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

But then foreign critics right away made sweeping comparisons to haiku, noh theater, and directors like Ozu, as if the movie were somehow representat…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

I did want to become a novelist, but the program at Waseda was pretty intense in terms of language requirements - two hours of English and four hours…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

In order to avoid sentimentality and to be able to write the screenplay with the kind of humor and irony necessary to keep the story moving, I needed…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

As far as documentaries go, I believe unreservedly that they serve an important function in our culture. I'd love to be able to make both documentari…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

In the neighborhood around Waseda, there were all these movie theaters, so every morning I left the house and watched movies instead of going to clas…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

One of the more problematic aspects of the current state of cinema in Japan is that the movies playing in the theaters are by and large made not by f…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

If a movie is nominated for, say, an Academy award, that movie will instantly become popular in Japan. There's always been a bit of a complex the Jap…

- Hirokazu Koreeda

The biggest considerations I had were practical: how do you move such a large number of actors around a small space? So, for example, if I have to ha…

- Hirokazu Koreeda