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Oscars Roundup

What’s in store for Ang Lee and Asian movies in the U.S.

Ang Lee at the Golden Globe Awards Ceremony 2001.

By Justin Lowe

When the Academy Awards are presented on Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will be the highest-grossing, most-nominated foreign language film that’s ever competed. With ten Oscar nods, including the prestigious best director and best picture nominations, Crouching Tiger has succeeded in winning over subtitle-shy American audiences, and smashing box office records since its U.S. release last December.

A sweeping romantic adventure set in 19th-century China, Crouching Tiger’s creative blend of martial arts and classic tragedy, along with outstanding performances by Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh, has proved irresistible to moviegoers tired of stale Hollywood formulas and eager for more diverse fare.

Even by the American movie industry's most demanding and decisive standard — the almighty box office — Crouching Tiger is an unprecedented phenomenon, far and away the highest grossing foreign-language film in U.S. history. With a take of more than $150 million worldwide, the movie officially achieved $100 million domestic blockbuster status last weekend. By comparison, Life Is Beautiful, Academy Award winner two years ago for best actor and foreign film, grossed just $58 million.

While it may be difficult for another Asian-language film to achieve a similar level of success in the immediate term, Crouching Tiger’s broad appeal and numerous awards have made American audiences more receptive than ever to movies from Asia. The trade paper and industry standard Variety observed last week that Crouching Tiger could “mark the beginning of a new acceptance of Asian film on the American big screen.”

Strong critical and popular support for other recent domestic releases from Asia, including Chunhyang from Korea, Taiwan’s Yi Yi and In the Mood for Love from Hong Kong, along with early indications from international film festivals suggest that 2001 may be an even better year for the distribution of Asian and API film than the year of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The New York Film Critics Circle recognized Edward Yang’s Yi Yi, an engrossing three-hour family drama, with its best foreign-language film award, while the National Society of Film Critics named it best picture for 2000. Last year at the Cannes International Film Festival, In the Mood for Love’s picturesquely unrequited romance beat out Crouching Tiger for best technical direction, and Tony Leung took the best actor prize. In the Mood recently received 12 nominations from the Hong Kong Film Awards, whereas Crouching Tiger earned an unprecedented 16 nominations — one in every possible category.

On this year’s domestic festival circuit beginning in January, Sundance Film Festival entrants included API filmmakers Timothy Linh Bui with his Vietnamese refugee drama Green Dragon, Rod Pulido’s The Flip Side — the first Filipino Sundance entry, hip hop DJ Q-Bert, creator of the animated musical feature Wave Twisters, and Meng Ong’s Miss Wonton. Meanwhile, Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s nostalgic romance, The Road Home, won the festival’s world cinema audience award.

Asian films have been making strong showings in Europe as well this year. At the Berlin International Film Festival in February, the Silver Bear for best director went to Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-sheng for Betelnut Beauty, while Wang Xiaoshuai’s Beijing Bicycle received the Silver Bear grand prize for best feature film and picked up a U.S. distributor in the process.

Following closely on Berlin, the International Film Festival Rotterdam also featured Crouching Tiger, along with a slew of new Asian films, with Japanese entrants including the three-plus hour disaster-aftermath drama Eureka by Aoyama Shinji (currently appearing in the Shooting Gallery film series touring the U.S.); samurai sword fantasy Gojoe along with Electric Dragon 80,000 V from Ishii Sogo; coming-of-age feature Bad Company by Furumaya Tomoyuki (winner of the festival’s Tiger award); and Fukasaku Kinji’s teen-killer thriller Battle Royale; as well as Durian, Durian by Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan; and the supernatural Secret Tears, a Korean entry from Park Ki-hyung.

For Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, however, it all comes down to the Oscars, where it will be up against Hollywood heavyweights such as Gladiator, Erin Brockovich and Traffic in both the best director and best picture categories — the first time an Asian film has been nominated for the top honor.

Ahead of the Academy Awards, other prize ceremonies have foreshadowed Crouching Tiger’s excellent prospects, often in competition with the same films it will face at the Oscars.

January’s Golden Globe Awards are typically seen as precursors to the Oscars. Ang Lee’s best director prize at the Globes, recently seconded by the Director’s Guild of America, an Academy Award for best director seems almost assured. However, don’t expect Lee to make any Oscar predictions — he has remained resolutely gracious throughout the awards season.

So what can fans of Asian cinema expect at the Oscars? Look for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to come away with the best director and best foreign-language film awards, along with at least one or two more — most likely either cinematography or editing — and an award for costume design or art direction. Crouching Tiger faces the longest odds in the most-coveted best picture category, and that honor would make it the first-ever foreign film winner.

Whatever the outcome, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s achievements at the Academy Awards mean that mainstream American movie audiences are unlikely to soon forget such an auspicious and entertaining introduction to Asian film.