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Ang Lee and his inner dragon
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THE Chinese-American community of Los Angeles came out in force on Monday to thank director Ang Lee (李安) for raising the profile of Chinese culture through his Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (《卧虎藏龙》).
Resplendent in their holiday best, including striking modern variations on traditional Chinese designs, young and old waited nearly two hours for the chance to see, hear and be photographed with the Taiwan-born Lee.
Crouching Tiger won four Academy Awards on March 25, including best foreign-language film, cinematography, art direction and score. The foreign-language film award was the first ever won by Asia, not counting honorary awards given to Japan in the 1950s.
Apart from the scenes of high-flying dancelike kungfu fightings, the Hiden Dragon, like his previous films, offers audience a grimpse of the “inner dragon" inside the versatile director himself.
“ANG LEE'S personality is very often reflected in his films," said producer Hsu Li-kong (徐立功), Lee's long-term filming partner.
Indeed, the main character in the film Pushing Hands (《推手》) bears a distinct resemblence to the then 39-year-old filmmaker, at the time a new hand in the business.
Before Pushing Hands, Lee had spent six years homebound waiting sullenly for film projects in up-state New York. But he kept up hope and patience, much like the elderly figure in the film, who lives with an American household and is confined to the house with virtually nothing to do and who, out of boredom, takes up taiji (太极拳), the breathing exercises that focus physical and inner strength.
Ten years on, Lee's movies have evolved from the lugubrious Pushing Hands to the fantastical martial arts megahit Crouching Tiger. Themes of waiting and endurance have been replaced with those of romance and anxiety. And the action has diversified from the glacially paced taiji movements to bombastic flying, hacking and sword dancing.
The biggest change in Lee's life took place at this year's Anual Academy Awards ceremony, where Crouching Tiger won four different Oscars.
Crouching Tiger is the first foreign-language film to break the US$100 million mark at the US box office and has triggered considerable hype over an “Asian film invasion".
However, like most artists, Lee has his own hidden agenda in making the film aside from commercial achievement.
“Everybody has his own inner dragon inside the heart. It can be an unforgettable love, or a dream of ancient China... Making this film has fulfilled my childhood fantasy and also helped me deal with my mid-life crisis," Lee said when accepting the Golden Globe Award as best director recently.
Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat (周润发), who plays protagonist Li Mu-bai in Crouching Tiger, was probably the first one to expose Lee's authorial intervention in the movie. “As you know, Li Mu-bai is Ang Lee," Chow said at the film's Hong Kong premiere.
In Lee's previous films, especially in his Father Knows Best family dramas, the leading male role is typically a well-intentioned, yet bumbling and fundamentally clueless figure. In Crouching Tiger, however, Lee seems to have sloughed off the awkward charm of his previous characters and jumped into the skin of a sword-wielding, love-tormented martial arts hero juggling the affections of two heroines.
Lee admits that the film was probably the first time he dealt with desire and anxiety.
“In Taoism, dragon and tiger symbolize emotions and desires, respectively. One must tame the dragon and the tiger to vanquish desire, so that one can achieve the Tao," Lee has said in describing the film.
Li Mu-bai faces just such a dilemma in the film. On one hand he represses feelings for Yu Siu-lien (Michelle Yeoh, 杨紫琼), while on the other he lectures the wild and petulant Jen (Zhang Ziyi, 章子怡). At the same time though, he feels the tug of desire for both.
The women in Crouching Tiger emerge with the strongest characters: the tough, calm, rational Yu Siu-lien and the daring, willful and brilliant Jen. The two roles, according to Lee, were inspired by his wife. “My wife's personality is more like Siu-lien. But she also has a bold and rebellious side, as in Jen's character," said Lee.
Lee is quick to hand credit to his wife, Lin Hui-chia (林惠嘉), a microbiologist, for supporting the family while Lee waited for film projects.
“She is very independent, and decisive, whereas I am more irresolute. In our house, she sets the rules and I follow," Lee has been quoted as saying.
During a Q&A session at Crouching Tiger's US release, Lee again let down his guard: “I'm more interested in tough women. Maybe because I'm not very macho, so fragile women don't usually intrigue me."
Crouching Tiger was also a chance for Lee to give expression to his fantasies about ancient China and martial arts and dabble in the stock techniques of the gongfu genre. He mixes stunning long and close shots in the first fight scene, as Yu Siu-lien and Jen run up and down walls and jump from roof to roof.
He transforms a bamboo grove into a poetic battlefield in which the actors fight on the top end of bamboo stalks. And through clever use of wires, he makes the actors defy gravity.
“Learning to shoot a martial arts film was a lot of fun," Lee said in an interview in Taipei at the Golden Horse Awards. “Before, I have been like a good student when making films, being careful at every step. Now after the experience of Crouching Tiger, I would like to take bigger strides in the future," he said.
Indeed, five weeks ago Lee just finished a US$2 million five-minute BMW commercial which involves a high-speed car chase. Lee is clearly in the film industry's big league now. No wonder his wife likes to tease him by saying, “Whatever he couldn't achieve in his childhood, he can now try to achieve with his films."
(SD-Agencies)
His films
HAVING garnered international acclaim for his work, Ang Lee was one of the first Chinese-born directors to find critical and commercial success on both sides of the Pacific.
Born in 1954 in Taipei, he graduated from the National Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 and then went to the United States, where he studied theater directing at the University of Illinois and film production at New York University.
After winning awards in 1985 for his student work, Lee spent the next six years working on screenplays, eventually making his directorial debut in 1992 with Pushing Hands. A comedy about the generational and cultural gaps in a Chinese family in New York, it won awards in Taiwan.
His next film, The Wedding Banquet (《喜宴》) (1993), met with widespread acclaim, winning a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and a Best Director prize at the Seattle Film Festival, as well as Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.
With his international reputation growing, Lee went on to make Eat Drink Man Woman (《饮食男女》) (1994), his third film to focus on the theme of generational differences. It won a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination, as well as Independent Spirit Award and BAFTA nominations.
Following this success, Lee ventured into the world of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking with Sense and Sensibility (《理智与情感》)in 1995. A fairly faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, the film proved another success for the director, earning honors including a Best Picture Oscar nomination, a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and a number of British Academy Awards.
Lee was voted the year's Best Director by the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle.
In 1997, the director next turned to adapting Rick Moody's novel The Ice Storm (《冰风暴》). Lee brought a sober, painterly touch to the material, and his approach won him international critical acclaim. The film won a number of international awards, including a 1997 Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival for James Schamus.
Having secured a place on Hollywood's roster of A-list directors, Lee next tried his hand at Civil War drama with Ride with the Devil.
On March 25, 2001, his Crouching Tiger made history at the 73rd Annual Academy Awards by winning four Oscars.(SD-Agencies)
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