Houston Community News >> Ang Lee Wins Second Golden Lion Award
9/9/2007-- Chinese director Ang
Lee Saturday picked up the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for best picture
for his spy thriller "Lust, Caution," just two years after taking the same award
for "Brokeback Mountain."
This is the third consecutive year that a Chinese director has won the Golden
Lion. Last year's best picture award went to Jia Zhangke for "Still Life."
Jia's "Wuyong", or 'Useless,' took the Orizzonti Doc Prize at this year's Venice
Film Festival.
Lee's movie, called "Se, Jie" in Chinese, is set in the Japanese-occupied
Shanghai in 1940s. The boldness of the sex scenes in the movie between a spy
girl played by novice actress Tang Wei and powerful political figure played by
Tony Leung became a major topic at the festival.
Jury president Zhang Yimou said Lee's movie has won applause from all of the
seven-member jury. Lee had made an excellent integration of international
resources while filming "Lust, Caution," which played an important role in
winning him the award, he said.
Lee told the red carpet prize ceremony that the movie "has taken me to some very
difficult places."
Lee said he was accepting the prize "in the shadow of the passing of two great
giants, Michaelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman."
The director said he would like to dedicate the award to Bergman, whom he saw
while working on "Lust, Caution". "Ingmar hugged me the way a mother hugs a
child. This hug was not for me, it was for you, the keepers of cinema," he said.
Bergman died on July 30, and Antonioni of Italy one day later.
Lee also expressed his gratitude to Chinese viewers and his colleagues in Hong
Kong, saying that he hoped to share the award with all Chinese.
Tunisian-born director Abdellatif Kechiche's immigration drama "La Graine et le
Mulet" ("The Secret of the Grain") had been the pre-award favorite for the
Golden Lion.
It took away one of two runner-up jury prizes, while the other was won by U.S.
director Todd Haynes for his "I'm Not There.