Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

"Chapter One.

"To fall in love with Asia is one thing.

"To fall in love in Asia is another.

"Both have happened to me.

"The Star Ferry to Kowloon at night...

"the lights of Hong Kong behind me...

"it's a gift,

"a dream,

"a curse.

"The best thing,

"the happiest thing,

"yet, also,

the loneliest thing in the world."

- All of us, when we travel, look at the places we go,

the things we see through different eyes.

And how we see them is shaped by our previous lives.

The books we've read.

The films we've seen.

The baggage we carry.

Years ago, when I first watched

the stunningly beautiful films of director Wong Kar-wai,

it shaped forever the way I'd see Hong Kong.

From that point on, my hopes,

my expectations of this city

would be seen through that lens,

a lens that was, in nearly every case,

pointed by, focused by this man:

Christopher Doyle,

long-time resident of Hong Kong,

known by his Mandarin name Du Kefeng.

And it won't go away.

His earlier works with Wong Kar-wai

were distinguished

by unspeakably gorgeous images

of beautiful people moving through spaces

both unfamiliar and yet painfully intimate.

Alternately jagged,

frenzied, innovative,

languid, composed,

chaotic.

I obsessed over his work, fetishized it,

longed to see Hong Kong like the characters

in so many of his films longed for each other.

And I feared, like those characters,

I would be denied.

I was wrong.

- The good thing about the escalator,

it's the best place to watch people.

The mid-level escalators.

7 million people in Hong Kong,

many of them flowing through this mile-long

escalator system.

It's Chris Doyle's happy place.

What do you look at in Hong Kong?

And you've lived here how long?

- Oh, 20, 30 years, almost. - So...

I-I mean, I've spent more time

in this space than I have spent in bars.

Look at this, we have people coming and going.

We have the city passing us by.

We have... to me, the energy is the noise,

is the people.

I mean, the films that we made

are only this way because we made them here.

I've made 12 films within 2 square kilometers

of where we are right now.

In fact, we're gonna pass by my apartment,

which is the most famous apartment

- in Hong Kong. - You shot in there, right?

It doesn't exist anymore

because the energy changes.

But to tune into the energy...

Ah-ha, hello... Then we have a movie.

Then we have this conversation.

Then we have something that the cameraman

is gonna fall over backwards trying to film.

I think you're just preparing all the time.

For example, you watch some of my movies.

- Yes. - Or we read a book.

- Yeah. - Or we go out

- drinking with friends. - Yeah.

And then bang, bang,

we're doing something which all of those energies

focus in a way that somehow connects with other people.

Hello. What do you want in life?

I mean, you do understand

the impulse, right?

People see work that you've long ago

just like moved on from.

And they get, you know... They get a hard-on,

and it won't go away.

I mean, come on, it's...

But the great pleasure is,

I did it...

and it's done.

You want me to reshoot "Chunking Express"?

- But of course they all do, don't they?

But I don't know how I did it!

Is there a value in

just beautiful people and objects

moving through space in beautiful ways?

Is there a value to the color

- of a pomegranate? - Yeah, yeah, there is.

Exactly!

This is our challenge, is to celebrate that.

So-called "beauty" is not,

you know, "My make-up is so good,

and then I... I lifted my face a bit."

No. Beauty is the darkness

and the pleasure of embracing that

and that giving you something more

of your experience of life.

I read a script, and it says,

"He looked so sophisticate"...

How do you film "sophisticated"?

How do you convey the taste of a chili?

We'll never know, but...

the privilege we've been given

is, number one, we've experienced it personally.

So it becomes part of who you are.

Leaf Dessert Noodle Shop

is a hundred-year-old holdout in Central.

Chris has been coming here for years,

both to film and for this:

Choy noodle soup for him,

and beef brisket noodles with wonton for me.

Ah, here we go.

So this is family food.

Yeah.

- You don't know. - I don't know.

This is the most famous noodle stand

in cinema history, in Hong Kong.

- Has he been in the films himself?

Many, many, many times.

- This is our next nomination for Hong Kong Film Awards.

Ah, man.

It's good too.

- I don't watch movies. - I don't...

watch other people's work.

I can't draw,

but I know if you put this...

And you move it around a bit...

it may take you somewhere.

So, to me, collage is like the unexpected put together

to perhaps suggest something that you never thought of.

Our experience actually gives us a distance

and gives us this wonderful freedom,

which is called time.

I thought time was running out,

but it's not.

Time is actually

being more condensed, because we're more focused.

Now our job as artists is to show you the world

that you think you knew

and celebrate it.

In my wonderful experience and wonderful journey

with a person called Wong Kar-wai,

it finally... After all the films we made,

we made a film called "In the Mood for Love."

I think everything we did before then

was preparation.

I think that's it. If you find this

in your life,

you actually say one sentence

or you make one dish

or you make one image

that is true.

That's pretty good,

because not many people get that.

- The love of money and shiny new things

is slowly but surely erasing the past.

So before it's gone, this is a reminder

of how Hong Kong used to eat,

at dai pai dongs like this one

in Sham Shui Po.

Cheap, delicious food served from open-air stalls.

Pull up a plastic stool, crack a beer,

fire up the wok.

So tell me, what is a dai pai dong?

- "Dai" is "big." - Big.

"Pai" is "license."

And "dong" is "place."

- So it's... - So it's "big license place."

- Right, and how many of these are left in, uh...

- 28. - Whoa, whoa, whoa.