Q:  What made you certain that he was going to be a big star?

JW:  I didn’t know he would become a big star after that movie. The reason I wanted him was because I found he was a really good actor, even though he was just a popular TV star at the time. He also had done some movies, but they flopped. He got the name “box office poison.” People liked him but people didn’t appreciate him as a good actor.

     When I read the newspaper, he was always helping poor kids, giving his money, helping his friends. He’s a man with big honor. And I thought, “This kind of man is a true hero, and this man is my kind of hero.” I also really liked his performances.

      So I used him to play Mark, this character in A Better Tomorrow. Then I found that this guy was so elegant and also had great charisma. He reminded me of Alain Delon, and Steve McQueen, Ken Takakura—all my great idols, all in him. And I thought, while we are shooting, I just felt, “He’s a great actor; he will be popular.” But I didn’t know he’d be that popular, you know? The movie worked so well. One of the reasons the movie became a big hit was because of him.

Q:  Sure. And that started the trend in Hong Kong with people wearing trench coats…

JW:  And sunglasses.

Q:  …and sunglasses.

JW:  And I’m not kidding, you know. All of a sudden, most of the sunglasses sold out in Hong Kong. Even though people couldn’t buy the same kind, and they bought a similar kind.

Q:  And why do you think that movie was such a huge hit?

JW:  Beside the actors, I think that the story really moved a lot of the audience. They’d never seen a gangster movie that had a sense of great style. And also so emotional. Most of the drama looked so real, because it came from my heart—most of the dialogue was written by myself.

     They were also moved by the character, Chow Yun-Fat’s character. Everybody wanted to do the same thing, like him. Always, whatever he did, he did for his friend. That kind of honor and loyalty, that kind of higher dignity and spirit, for Asian people—they always admire those kinds of people. The way he sacrifices himself for a friend, that kind of a spirit.

      The audience was also moved by the relationship between the two brothers. There’s a lot of conflict, a lot of guilt and misunderstanding between the two brothers, and people felt sad about it.

      Another thing is, the movie really had created a new kind of style in action, production design and cinematography. It was all very fresh for the audience. The action—they’d never seen a movie [where a character] uses two guns. The gun battle scene was so impressive.

      On the other hand, the movie also had brought out the old-fashioned, the true value of the morality. Like in old times, people used to care so much about each other and took care of each other and had strong friendships or family to bond them together. Now, all those kinds of good things, it is all lost.