1. Ang Lee's films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions.
41 Facts About Ang Lee
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Ang Lee rose to prominence directing films such as Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, and Eat Drink Man Woman, 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.
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Ang Lee went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Director twice for the romantic drama Brokeback Mountain and the survival drama Life of Pi.
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Ang Lee directed films in a broad range of genres, including the drama The Ice Storm, the martial arts drama Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the superhero movie Hulk, and the erotic espionage drama Lust, Caution.
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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.
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Ang Lee grew up in a household that put a heavy emphasis on education.
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In 1956, when Ang Lee was 2 years old, his family moved to Hualien because his father took a position as the Principal of Taiwan Provincial Hualien Normal School.
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Ang Lee attended two elementary schools in Hualien: Mingli Elementary School and Affiliated Primary School of Taiwan Provincial Hualien Normal School.
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Ang Lee has mentioned that the eight years he lived in Hualien were the happiest time of his life before he went north to study at National Arts School.
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Ang Lee studied in the Provincial Tainan First Senior High School where his father was the principal.
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Ang Lee's father had wanted him to become a professor, but he had become interested in drama and the arts in college.
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Originally, Ang Lee was interested in acting, but his challenges with speaking English made it difficult, and he quickly turned to directing.
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At UIUC, Ang Lee met his future wife, Jane Lin, a student from Taiwan, who was pursuing her PhD degree.
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Ang Lee was a classmate of Spike Lee and worked on the crew of his thesis film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.
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In 1995, Ang Lee directed Columbia TriStar's British classic Sense and Sensibility based on the Jane Austen novel of the same name.
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Ang Lee made The Ice Storm, a drama set in 1970s suburban America, starring Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, and Tobey Maguire.
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Ang Lee made another film, the revisionist Western drama Ride with the Devil, set during the American Civil War.
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Excited about the opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream, Ang Lee assembled a team from the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Mainland China for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
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In 2003, Ang Lee returned to Hollywood to direct the superhero blockbuster Hulk, his second big-budget movie after the disappointment of Ride with the Devils restricted release.
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Ang Lee took on a small-budget, low-profile independent film based on Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize-finalist short story, Brokeback Mountain.
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Ang Lee became the first non-white person to win the Best Director at the Academy Awards.
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Ang Lee removed 9 minutes from the film to make the content suitable for minor audiences in order to be permitted to show Lust, Caution in mainland China.
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Ang Lee was chosen to be president of the jury for the 2009 Venice Film Festival.
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Ang Lee finds himself on a lifeboat with an orangutan, a hyena, a wounded zebra and a Bengal tiger.
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The novel was once considered impossible to make into a movie, but Ang Lee persuaded 20th Century Fox to invest $120 million and heavily relied on 3D special effects in post-production.
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Unlike most other sci-fi precedents, Ang Lee explores the artistic horizon of applying 3D effects and pushes the boundary of how this technology can serve the movie's artistic vision.
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Ang Lee went on to win the Academy Award for Best Director.
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However, Ang Lee decided to quit the project to take a break from his hectic schedule.
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Ang Lee next directed the war drama Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk based on the novel of the same name.
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In 2013, Ang Lee began development on a film dramatising Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali's heavyweight title fight, known as the Thrilla in Manila.
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The film was to be produced by Universal with a screenplay written by Peter Morgan, but Ang Lee later put it on hold in 2014 in order to make Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.
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Ang Lee is sometimes described as a naturalized US citizen but has said he is a permanent resident of the United States.
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Ang Lee has been involved in the process of filmmaking in various capacities, though the highlight of his career and legacy is his directorial work.
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In 2003, Ang Lee was ranked 27th in The Guardian 40 best directors.
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Ang Lee has received awards from the French Government including becoming a Knight of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
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Ang Lee has been nominated for nine Academy Awards, of which he has won Best Director for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi, becoming the first non-white director to win the prize.
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Ang Lee is one of four directors to win the Golden Lion twice and the sole filmmaker to have been awarded the Golden Bear twice.
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Ang Lee has 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.
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On November 30,2021, Ang Lee received the Presidential Culture Award in the arts and culture category from Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen.
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Ang Lee has had a career-long collaboration with producer and screenwriter James Schamus and editor Tim Squyres.
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Ang Lee has worked several times with music composer Mychael Danna and twice with Danny Elfman.