Ang Lee - Details

Born in Taiwan, director Ang Lee studied stage at the local Academy of Art before moving to the United States, where he studied theater at the University of Illinois and later film production at New York University.

Lee made his feature-film debut with 1992’s Pushing Hands; that first effort was followed in 1993 by The Wedding Banquet, which became the first Taiwanese film ever to be nominated for an Academy Awardâ for Best Foreign Language Film. Eat Drink Man Woman, his third film, was also nominated in the same category.

In 1995, Lee helmed his first English-language feature, Sense and Sensibility. Based on Jane Austen’s classic novel, the film went on to garner seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Emma Thompson’s screenplay.

1997’s The Ice Storm, based on the novel of the same name by Rick Moody and starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, was a searing exploration of American suburbia during the morally combustible 1970s.

Released in 1999, Ride with the Devil is adaptated from the novel Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell, set during the American Civil War.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon marks Lee’s return to Chinese-language features.