Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon gets 10 Oscar nominations
After marking his arrival in Hollywood with a string of English-language films including Sense and Sensibility (1995) The Ice Storm (1997) and Ride with the Devil (1999) the Taiwanese film director Ang Lee decided to return to his roots for his next picture which he intended largely for Chinese-language audiences.Ironically the resultCrouching Tiger Hidden Dragonwould become by far his biggest hit to date.On February 13 2001 the film earned 10 Oscar nominations becoming the first Asian film and only the seventh foreign-language offering to get a nod for Best Picture.Based on the traditional Chinese martial-arts genre known as wuxia Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon starred Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh as warriors in 19th-century China during the Qing dynasty.
Kept apart by honor the two yearn for each other even as they become involved with a heated drama surrounding two younger lovers played by Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen.Aside from the touching love story at its center the film boasted incredibly beautiful scenery haunting music andlast but by no means leastelaborate battle sequences with fighters flying through the air and performing other impossibly acrobatic feats.The films fight choreography was by Yuen Wo-Ping who directed the action sequences in the blockbuster hit The Matrix (1999).In addition to the heaps of critical praise and awardsincluding a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Lee an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film and three more Oscars in technical categoriesCrouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was an unqualified hit at the box office.
After first gaining notice on the film festival circuit it was released in December 2000 on six screens in New York City.Encouraged by its success the films distributor Sony Picture Classics widened its release and it was eventually shown on some 1200 screens throughout the country.Raking in more than 60 million at the U.S.
box office (as well as 100 million worldwide) Crouching Tiger became the highest-grossing foreign-language film in American history surpassing Roberto Benignis Life is Beautiful to claim the distinction.Though Lees rising star dimmed slightly with the disappointing performance of his first big-budget film the superhero drama Hulk (2003) he bounced back with his next Hollywood offering Brokeback Mountain (2005).The film about two sheep herders who fall in love with each other against the dramatic backdrop of the Wyoming countryside won Lee the Best Director Oscar he was the first person of Asian heritage to receive that coveted statuette.Brokeback Mountain which generated buzz for its frank depiction of homosexuality and repression was also a front-runner for Best Picture but it was upset by the ensemble drama Crash in one of the most surprising Oscar results in recent history.
