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I was conceived in the back of a station wagon on Bondi Beach. Do you believe that?
I grew up in Sydney. I was a sailor.
I didn’t move to Hong Kong. I was deported from India. I didn’t want to go back to Australia, so this was the closest port there was.
I tried to walk to Burma [from India]. I don’t know why, it was just an interesting thing to do.
Then I got busted. The Burmese sent me to jail in India. It was great. We had drugs, we had girls, we’d go out for food. It was the best jail in the world.
Then they put me in a real jail, and I said, “Oh shit, I gotta get outta here.”
I came to Hong Kong to learn Chinese. I was a traveler for 15 years. I spoke many languages badly. To learn a culture you have to start with the language.
The motivation to speak it is either economic, or because of love. For me, love is a much more valid motivation.
Of course you can “boom-boom.” When you wake up after, you have to talk. You have to say something like, “How was it for you?”
I’m very lucky because I have this guy called Du Kefeng—my Chinese me.
Du Kefeng really works hard. Christopher Doyle just hangs out in bars and drinks a lot.
His name means “the wind.” It’s a very poetic name. You would imagine he is some kind of bastard son of a Manchurian prince.
I aspire to be Du Kefeng, but I’ll never get there.
Everyone should have two personalities. You have to be a wife and a whore. A businessman but also a rugby player. It’s liberating.
As an artist, you have to be objective and subjective. I have to be from Hong Kong. I have to have been born somewhere else. You have to be close to the painting but take a step back and see what you’re really doing.
For some people, it’s difficult. You come from somewhere else, you’re working in Hong Kong and you feel alienated. If you get it right, it’s wonderful—because you’re from the outside and you’re involved in what you’re doing.
That’s what expats should really do: bring their otherness to the table, but engage in our us-ness. And then, we’ll be a community.
I got into the film industry by accident. Somebody gave me a camera and said,“do this.”
I made my first film in 1986. I had never done it before.
“Today, we’re gonna do this, and I have no idea how, but we’re gonna work it out.” I think that’s the way to live.
People often ask me, “Why don’t you do another film like ‘Chungking Express’?” Why? Hong Kong is not the same anymore. I’m not the same anymore. Why would you repeat yourself?
[On Wong Kar-wai] Why would you spend so much of your life with someone if you didn’t love them?
I have stuff he doesn’t have, he has a great deal more than I have, and we fill in each other’s gaps. That’s why it works and that’s why the films are the way they are.
The real stars are the real people. It’s the wannabes who are the wankers who complain all day and frustrate the working process.
It’s because they’re insecure. That’s the whole reason you want to be loved.
Me too—to be a performer of any kind, why would you put yourself in the public eye unless you had a great need to be loved?
I’m in film for Maggie [Cheung], for the women. Not in the “boom-boom” sense. In the sense of respect, of wonder, of the pleasure of, as a man, sharing something you couldn’t share in any other way with a woman.
I wake up astonished that I’m this age, and I’m having such a wonderful life. It’s not me—it’s the people I’ve worked with. It’s fucking beautiful. [Cries]
I don’t think it’s possible to leave here. Would Hong Kong ever leave me, is the question.
I consider myself a cowboy. Cowboys are always alone, even when they’re with someone they love.
Hong Kong is one big film set, in the sense of the engagement you need; in the way that the encounters with people are so intense; in the way that you have to see more in order to do the best and respond to the changing nature of politics and social class.
What do I value the most in life? Women.
	Christopher Doyle’s exhibition, “I Didn’t Come Here And I Ain’t Leaving,” runs through March 1 at Agnès B.’s Librairie Galerie, G/F, 118 Hollywood Rd., Sheung Wan, 2869-5505.


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Christopher Doyle

Magazines

Master cinematographer Christopher Doyle—also known as his Chinese alter ego, Du Kefeng, has lived in Hong Kong since the 1970s. He’s worked with Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Gus Van Sant—but is best known for his partnership with Wong Kar-wai, creating the distinctive look of classics such as “In the Mood for Love.” He tells Andrea Lo about love, sex, and expats.
