[Ang Lee] English Translation PDF

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Chapter 1 - Life of Pi I am just like Pi in the movie. I am, on the one side, gentle; on the other side, wild as a tiger. - Ang Lee On January 10th, 2013, the 85th Academy Award nominations were released. Life of Pi by the world-renowned Chinese director Ang Lee lived up to expectations, garnering 11 nominations including the esteemed Best Achievement in Directing and Best Motion Picture of the Year. Other nominations included Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song), Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Cinematography, Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, Best Achievement in Visual Effects, and so on. At the 70t h Golden  Globe Awards, the movie was also nominated for (but did not win) Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Director (Motion Picture), and Best Original Score (Motion Picture). The movie was adapted from the popular novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The story is about a sixteen-year-old Indian boy named Pi whose family runs a zoo in India. One day, Pi’s father decides to bring his family and animals from the zoo and immigrate to Canada. However, the ship they are on encounters a vicious storm and sinks, claiming the lives of Pi’s family and majority of the animals on board. Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with only a hyena, an orangutan, an injured zebra, and a tiger named Richard Parker. The hyena eventually bites the zebra and orangutan to death, and then falls prey to the tiger. Young Pi and Richard Parker spend 227 days together at sea until they are washed ashore. Throughout their journey, Pi sees surreal oceanic scenery and gains transformative insights on religion and moral values. The audience is also able to witness Pi’s immense faith, courage, and will to survive. The movie Life of Pi explores Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Lee believes that religion is like a house. There are multiple floors, each with different rooms, but also open space for doubt. In the movie, Lee takes the audience on a journey to think about what God, belief, and spirituality are. Therefore, the movie is more of a manifest of humans’ desire for belief than a commentary on religion. Before Ang Lee, a number of famous directors had planned to shoot Life of Pi, but abandoned the project due to technical challenges and funding issues. It is common knowledge in the movie industry that children, animals, and water are the three most difficult elements to shoot. In a sense, the fate of the movie resembles the story it tells. Chapter 2 - Ang Lee’s “Father Knows Best” Trilogy

Father had high hopes for me, the eldest son. At home, I received the most love from him, but also the most scolding. - Ang Lee Ang Lee was born on October 23r d, 1954, in Pingtung, Taiwan. His father Sheng Lee had been born in Jiangxi Province in China. Coming from an affluent family, plus Ang Lee’s grandfather Feihong Lee placed great emphasis on education, Ang Lee’s father was taught to read and provided with a good education. Ang Lee grew up in a well-educated family. His father Sheng Lee was a high school principal and very strict to Ang Lee and his younger brother, Gang Lee. Sheng Lee often taught his two sons about traditional Mainland Chinese customs and culture. During Chinese New Year, the Lee family even performed the traditional Chinese bow (which involves kneeling before elders). Ang Lee started high school at the Provincial Tainan Second Senior High School and then transferred to Provincial Tainan First Senior High School. Ang Lee’s new school was not only the best one in South Taiwan; it was also the one where his father worked as a principal. Ang Lee’s classmates always asked him “At school, do you call your father ‘dad’ or ‘Mr. Principal’?” “Do you have to salute him?” Ang Lee held his father in high regard and feared him, and therefore always avoided him at school. In high school, Ang Lee was a timid student, an avid reader of comic books and literature, and a frequent customer at Chuan Men theatre where he watched movies carrying his backpack. This was a famous second-tier cinema in South Taiwan where one could watch a double feature for a low price. Ang Lee once said, “I grew up in the Chuan Men Cinema”. The Chuan Men Cinema fostered Ang Lee’s movie dreams. At school, Ang Lee performed above average in most subjects, but struggled with math. He missed the college entrance exam cut-off by six points the first time. The second time, he merely got 0.67 points in the math exam. Failing twice traumatized Ang Lee and his father Sheng greatly. To the education-focused Lee family with a principal at a famous high school as its head, it was truly shameful. Then, Ang made a decision that further infuriated his father– applying for the National Taiwan University of Arts. In a traditional family, entering the entertainment business was considered an act of great disobedience. The relationship between father and son was strained. In 1978, Ang Lee decided to apply to the University of Illinois in the U.S as a film major. Sheng Lee was adamantly opposed, but Ang Lee insisted. After that, their relationship deteriorated rapidly; the two spoke no more than a hundred words to each other for twenty years. Ang Lee’s first three movies, Pushing Hands (1992), The Wedding Banquet(1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) are known as the “Father Knows Best” trilogy because of their heavy focus on depicting the traditional father figure. The three are drastically different yet share many similarities. All three stories center on the communication gap between fathers and their children. In Pushing Hands, the father

Lao Zhu is a Tai Chi instructor who moves to the U.S. to live with his son after retirement. Many conflicts arise due to the language barrier between Lao Zhu and his son’s American wife Martha. In The Wedding Banquet, the father is a retired military high official, Lao Gao. He always wished that his son Weitong would marry, but Weitong is gay and has been in a domestic partnership with an American Caucasian, Simon, for five years. Weitong is afraid to tell his parents because homosexuality is not well-perceived by the traditional Chinese. To fend off his father, Weitong agrees to a fake marriage with a woman seeking an American green card, Weiwei. To Weitong’s surprise, his father flies all the way to the U.S. to attend the wedding banquet, causing many misunderstandings. The Wedding Banquet won Ang Lee his first Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, his first Golden Globe nomination, and his first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In the third movie, Eat Drink Man Woman, the father is the chef at a big restaurant whose wife passed away very early, leaving him to raise three daughters alone. Although he prepares deluxe meals for his daughters every Sunday and puts in tremendous effort to maintain familial relations, he fails to communicate with his daughters and is seen as stonehearted and strict. Behind the image of a harmonious family enjoying a hearty meal together is a reality of many secrets and misunderstandings. All three films were written and directed by Ang Lee. The audience can tell from the three movies that Lee’s father has had a big influence on him. Lee once said that in traditional Chinese culture, “fathers are the source of pressure, responsibility, pride, and honor. They represent the remnants of the past patriarchal society.” Ang Lee is the eldest son. Traditionally, eldest sons are the heirs and future heads of the family who naturally bear even greater pressure from their fathers. All the fathers in Lee’s “Father Knows Best” trilogy movies embody traditional “father authority”. They also showcase many other traditional Chinese elements such as Tai Chi, calligraphy, cuisine, familial honor, filial piety, and so on. Although they all display helplessness, they also, without a doubt, demonstrate paternal understanding, patience, and love to their fullest. Chapter 3 - The Life of a Stay-at-Home Father No one can stop you from achieving your dream. - Jane Lin, wife of Ang Lee At the Academy Awards in 2013, Ang Lee thanked his wife Jane Lin and told her“I love you” in front of an international audience. Lee reiterated that he would not have today’s success without his wife. Jane has been supportive of Lee since the beginning of his pursuit of his movie dreams. She remains humble and frugal today,

even when Ang Lee has reached the pinnacle of fame and success. She once said, “When Ang Lee was not yet a director, I was just Jane Lin. After Ang Lee became a director, I am still Jane Lin.” Jane Lin graduated from the University of Illinois with a Ph.D. in microbiology. She does not take particular interest in fashion, neither is she overly pampered or frail. She is incredibly independent never burdening another with anything she has the capability to deal with. Even when she was in labor, she drove herself to the delivery room. After graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a MFA in filmmaking in 1983, Ang Lee was unemployed and subsisted on his wife’s meager earnings from a job as a lab technician. Their eldest son, Haan Lee, was already born at the time. Ang Lee went grocery shopping, cooked, took care of the baby, and cleaned the house every day as a “househusband”. After dinner, he would sit near the door with his son, telling stories to him while waiting for the “brave huntress mom” to bring home prey (salary). Ang Lee was raised with the traditional Chinese belief that “men should go out to work, and women should stay home.” Therefore, the six years he spent as a stay-at-home father took a great toll on his self-esteem. His parents-in-law even sent money to Jane as seed fund for Ang Lee to start a Chinese restaurant. The determined Jane returned the money. Having witnessed Jane work hard to make a living while her husband stayed home “idly”, Jane’s mother asked her, “Do you really want to spend your entire life with this useless man?” The reality of his daily life as a househusband made Ang Lee seriously doubt his ability to achieve his “movie dreams.” One day, he went to a community college and signed up for a computer course. For living, it seemed that learning computer science was one of the ways for him to land a job quickly. However, Jane told him, “Ang, remember your dream,” “I’ve always believed that one only needs to be good at one thing. You are good at making movies. There are plenty of people studying computer science; it’s not the end of the world if you don’t study it too. If you want an Oscar, you need to keep your dream alive.” Backed with his wife’s support, Ang Lee was able to fully devote himself to his art. Aside from being a househusband, Ang Lee also read, watched films, and wrote screenplays extensively over the six years. Ang Lee is a great chef with impressive mastery of Chinese cuisine, which he incorporated into his film Eat Drink Man Woman. Every time he travels away for shooting, he always makes a huge batch of dumplings, freezes them, and then makes an entire fridge full of meals for his wife. After Ang Lee became an esteemed director, he was grocery shopping with Jane Lin one day in Flushing, New York, when another woman told Jane, “You are so lucky that your husband still has time to come grocery shopping with you!” Surprisingly Jane Lin replied, “Are you kidding? He’s lucky that I took time out of my busy day today to come

grocery shopping with him.” When Ang Lee won his first Golden Bear Award with The Wedding Banquet, Lee could not wait to call his wife in New York from Germany. It was five in the morning her time, and Lin was not happy about being woken up by the phone. “We won!”said Ang Lee. “Oh, did any other countries attend?” said Jane, right before hanging up.“That’s how cool she is. All these years, it really seems like she is unaffected by these superficial things,” said Ang Lee. Shooting Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon required traveling to China for a month. One of Ang’s crewmembers told Lee that his wife threatened to divorce him if he went with Lee. Jane, however, told Ang Lee to “just go.”Ang Lee is wholeheartedly grateful that Jane gives him all the time and space he needs for creativity. Her independence is her greatest contribution to him. Jane is independent, intelligent, shrewd, and capable. She was the sole breadwinner for the family for six years, working diligently and tirelessly without complaints. After Ang Lee’s rise to fame, she still makes sure Ang fulfills his share of responsibilities at home. She told Ang Lee, “It doesn’t matter how many little gold men (Oscar awards) you bring home, you are still Ang Lee. Our house is not your movie set, and you still have to finish your chores.” Chapter 4 - Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility I can take the strength of Eastern and Western culture and fuse them into a film. That is my strength. - Ang Lee Sense and Sensibility was Ang Lee’s first English film. It was a great challenge to him because he was born in another country and speaks English as a second language. This movie was based on the novel by the renowned 19t h century  British author Jane Austen. Emma Thompson was the movie’s screenwriter and lead actress. Emma was born into a family of theater professionals: her father was a play director; her mother and younger sister were both actresses. Emma graduated from the esteemed Cambridge University in Britain. She was an active member of the university’s theater club, and remains one of the most well known actresses and screenwriters in Britain. The other two famous lead actors were Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet, who had both acted in a number of world-renowned movies. Hugh Grant studied British Literature at Oxford University in Britain. Kate Winslet was exposed to acting at an early age. The two are both extremely talented British actors. When Columbia Pictures gave Emma Thompson’s screenplay to Ang Lee in 1995, he had never read a single Jane Austen novel! As a result, he spent a long time deciding whether or not to take on the Sense and Sensibility project, since it would be a great challenge – it involved too many “firsts.” This would be his first English film, first

collaboration with world-class actors, first Hollywood film, and first collaboration with a professional crew of cameramen, lighting designers, costume and props designers, and so on. Ang Lee said that when he was shooting for Sense and Sensibility, he felt like he jumped from childhood to adulthood, because his responsibility suddenly increased. Ang Lee was faced with lots of challenges during the production, not only because the movie had a high-profile scriptwriter and actors, such as Emma Thompson, but also because it was hard for a Chinese man to direct a group of big-name British actors to present a major work of British literature. Every actor and crew member was professional and experienced. He struggled with both cast and crew. He said, “I was always fighting for authority.” Ang Lee worked extremely hard to create a film in his own style. For example, he went to art museums to look at paintings from late 18t h-century Britain to learn about the characters’ posture, wardrobe, and daily habits. He also read many literary works from the period. Ang Lee said that when he first came to the U.S. for school, he struggled to communicate in English. This experience honed his visual learning skills, making him particularly observant. His early exposure to Chinese culture and experience studying western theater in the U.S. helped him find the perfect balance between Eastern and Western culture. He believes that the poignancy of the story of Sense and Sensibility lies not in the older sister’s logic or the younger sister’s emotion, but in the collision of logic and emotion – the most accurate manifestation of the human condition. When considering the portrayal of the older sister, Elinor, Emma favoured a modern-styled delivery. However, Ang insisted on preserving the elegance and humility of British culture in a style that resembles oriental conservatism. It is no surprise that Emma said that Ang Lee was closer to an 18t h Century  Englishman than she was. Sense and Sensibility went on to receive seven nominations at the 1995 Academy Awards, and won for Best Writing Adapted Screenplay. Chapter 5 - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Pride of Chinese Cinema I want to shoot Wu Xia movies, not just as a fulfillment of my childhood dreams, but also to satisfy my fascination with ancient China. - Ang Lee The Chinese film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shot by Ang Lee in 2001 set off a Chinese Kung Fu movie craze in the film industry around the world. The movie received ten nominations at the 2001 Academy Awards and won Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Art Direction. This was an unprecedented and insurmountable accomplishment in Chinese cinema.

After Sense and Sensibility, Ang Lee wanted to shoot a Chinese film, and shooting a Wu Xia movie has been a long-held childhood dream. The majority of Wu Xia movies are adapted from Wu Xia novels. The so-called “Wu Xia novel” is a genre of novel that incorporates elements from history, martial arts, romance, magic, and fantasy. All stories are set in ancient China, and the majority deal with conflicts between minority ethnic groups and the Han people, or conflicts among different schools of martial arts. Although the stories take place in real historical periods, they are mostly fictional. Some common terms in Wu Xia novels include “jiang hu”, “xia ke”, “wu lin”, “zhang men”, “zhong yuan”, “gai bang”, and so on. “Jiang hu” literally means “rivers and lakes,” but actually describes the area where the jiang hu warriors are active. There is a Chinese proverb that says, “You can’t help but follow the current in the jiang hu. (It’s hard for you to control your own fate in the jiang hu.)” “Xia ke” refers to warriors who use their power to help the weak. There is a Chinese proverb, “xing xia zhang yi”, which means spreading justice just as a “xia ke” does. “Wu lin” is a reference to people who practice and study martial arts. “Gai bang” is a martial arts school within “wu lin” that consists exclusively of beggars. In Wu Xia novels, members of “gai bang” are often symbols of righteousness despite their low socioeconomic status. Wu Xia novels often deliver idealistic messages and are therefore sometimes considered fairy tales for adults. Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was written by novelist Dulu Wang. Dulu Wang is not incredibly famous among Wu Xia novelists, but Ang Lee had wished to turn this story into a movie ever since he read the novel. Movie adaptations of Wu Xia novels were already very common. All the ways of presenting stories and action scenes had become stereotypes. Innovation was near impossible. Ang Lee chose Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for two reasons. First, the author described the main female characters especially vividly. Second, the story had a tragic ending. Both elements are rare in Wu Xia movies. A typical Wu Xia movie depicts love, hatred, relationships, and revenge while advocating justice and freedom from one xia ke’s perspective. However, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon lacks a clear protagonist. The two lead female characters were Shulien Yu played by Michelle Yeoh and Jiaolong Yu played by Ziyi Zhang. The male lead was Mubai Li played by Yun-Fat Chow, a famous Hong Kong actor. Ang Lee remains neutral in his narrative of the story: Mubai Li, a xia ke intending to give up his warrior life, asks his friend Shulien Yu to transport his sword, also known as the Green Destiny, to a high official. However, Jiaolong Yu, a Kung Fu master, intercepts the Green Destiny. It is later revealed that Jiaolong Yu is a spoiled and arrogant daughter of a high official, and she is being manipulated. Jiaolong Yu was opposed to the marriage her father arranged for her and ran away from home. Mubai Li and Shulien Yu invest great energy and time into putting Jiaolong Yu onto a path to

righteousness. Unfortunately, Mubai Li dies while rescuing Yu, and Yu also commits suicide by jumping off a cliff. Ang Lee fuses the language of literature and the language of film perfectly in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The movie has elegant action scen...