Ang Lee

Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. During his filmmaking career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and a range of accolades.

Lee's early successes included '' Pushing Hands'' (1991), '' The Wedding Banquet'' (1993), and '' Eat Drink Man Woman'' (1994), which explored the relationships and conflicts between tradition and modernity, Eastern and Western; the three films are informally known as the "''Father Knows Best''" trilogy.Wei Ming Dariotis, Eileen Fung,
Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee
" in Hsiao-peng Lu, ed., '' Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender'' (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), p. 242. The films were critically successful both in his native Taiwan and internationally. His first entirely English-language film was '' Sense and Sensibility'' (1995), for which he received critical praise and a number of accolades. He went on to direct films in a broad range of genres, including the drama ''The Ice Storm epic '' Ride with the Devil'' (1999); the martial arts ''wuxia'' drama '' Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' (2000); the superhero blockbuster '' Hulk'' (2003); the romantic drama '' Brokeback Mountain'' (2005); the erotic espionage period film '' Lust, Caution'' (2007); and the magic realist survival drama '' Life of Pi'' (2012). Most of Lee's work is known for its emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions.

Lee has been nominated for nine Academy Awards, of which he has won three: Best Foreign Language Film for ''Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'' and Best Director for ''Brokeback Mountain'' and ''Life of Pi'', becoming the first non-white director to win the latter. For ''The Wedding Banquet'' and ''Sense and Sensibility'', Lee won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival; for ''Brokeback Mountain'' and ''Lust Caution'', he won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Lee is one of four directors to win the Golden Lion twice and the sole filmmaker to have been awarded the Golden Bear twice. Lee has also been awarded Directors Guild of America Awards, Golden Globes and British Academy Film Awards, among others, and is the recipient of the Order of Brilliant Star, the second highest civilian honor bestowed by the government of Taiwan.

Early life and education

Ang Lee was born in a Waishengren family, in a military dependents' village of the Republic of China Armed Forces, located in Chaochou, Pingtung, a southern agricultural county in Taiwan. Both of Lee's parents moved following the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 from De'an, Kiangsi province in Mainland China to Taiwan. He grew up in a household that put heavy emphasis on education.

Lee studied in the Provincial Tainan First Senior High School (now National Tainan First Senior High School) where his father was the principal. He was expected to pass the annual Joint College/University Entrance Examination, the only route to a university education in Republic of China. But after failing the exam twice, to the disappointment of his father, he entered a three-year college, the National Arts School (now reorganized and expanded as National Taiwan University of Arts), and graduated in 1975. His father had wanted him to become a professor, but he had become interested in drama and the arts in college. This early frustration set his career on the path of performance art. Seeing Ingmar Bergman's film '' The Virgin Spring'' (1960) was a formative experience for him.

After finishing his mandatory military service in the Republic of China Navy (ROCN), Lee went to the US in 1979 to study at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he completed his bachelor's degree in theater in 1980. Originally, Lee was interested in acting, but his challenges with speaking English made it difficult, and he quickly turned to directing. At UIUC, Lee met his future wife, Jane Lin (), also a student from Taiwan, who was pursuing her PhD degree. Thereupon, he enrolled at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University, where he received his MFA in film production. He was a classmate of Spike Lee and worked on the crew of his thesis film, '' Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.''

During graduate school, Lee finished a 16mm short film, ''Shades of the Lake'' (1982), which won the Best Drama Award in Short Film in Taiwan. His own thesis work, a 43-minute drama, ''Fine Line'' (1984), won NYU's Wasserman Award for Outstanding Direction and was also chosen for broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service.

Life after graduation

Lee's NYU thesis drew attention from the William Morris Agency, the famous talent and literary agency that later represented Lee. At first, though, WMA found Lee few opportunities, and Lee remained unemployed for six years. During this time, he was a full-time house-husband, while his wife Jane Lin, a molecular biologist, was the sole breadwinner for the family of four. This arrangement put enormous pressure on the couple, but with Lin's support and understanding, Lee did not abandon his career in film but continued to generate new ideas from movies and performances. He also wrote several screenplays during this time.

In 1990, Lee submitted two screenplays, ''Pushing Hands'' and ''The Wedding Banquet'', to a competition sponsored by Government Information Office of R.O.C., and they came in first and second, respectively. The winning screenplays brought Lee to the attention of Hsu Li-kong (), a recently promoted senior manager in a major studio who had a strong interest in Lee's unique style and freshness. Hsu, a first-time producer, invited Lee to direct ''Pushing Hands'', a full-length feature that debuted in 1991.

Career

1990s

''The 'Father Knows Best' trilogy''

'' Pushing Hands'' (1991) was a success in Taiwan both among critics and at the box office. It received eight nominations in the Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwan's premier film festival. Inspired by the success, Hsu Li-kong collaborated with Lee in their second film, '' The Wedding Banquet'' (1993), which won the Golden Bear at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated as the Best Foreign Language Film in both the Golden Globe and the Academy Awards. In all, this film collected eleven Taiwanese and international awards and made Lee a rising star. These first two movies were based on stories of Chinese Americans, and both were filmed in the US.

In 1994, Hsu invited Lee to return to Taiwan to make '' Eat Drink Man Woman'', a film that depicts traditional values, modern relationships, and family conflicts in Taipei. The film was a box office hit and was critically acclaimed. For a second consecutive year, Lee's film received the Best Foreign Language Film nomination in both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards, as well as in the British Academy Awards (BAFTA)s. ''Eat Drink Man Woman'' won five awards in Taiwan and internationally, including the Best Director from Independent Spirit.

The three films show the Confucian family at risk and star the Taiwanese actor Sihung Lung to form what has been called Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy.

Sense and Sensibility

In 1995, Lee directed Columbia TriStar's British classic '' Sense and Sensibility''. This made Lee a second-time winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and won Best Adapted Screenplay for screenwriter Emma Thompson, who also starred in the movie alongside Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet. ''Sense and Sensibility'' also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Thompson has described the experience of working with Lee in his first English language film, noting how taken aback Lee was when the actors asked questions or provided suggestions, something Thompson notes as uncommon in Chinese culture. Once this disjuncture was bridged, Thompson remembered having "the most wonderful time because his notes were so brutal and funny."

After this, Lee directed two more Hollywood movies: ''The Ice Storm

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