The Chinese-American community of Los Angeles came out in force to thank director Ang Lee for raising the profile of Chinese culture through his Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Resplendent in their holiday best, including striking modern variations on traditional Chinese designs, young and old waited nearly two hours for the chance to see and be photographed with the Taiwan-born director.
Like many of the 200-plus invited guests at the reception hosted by the Taiwanese community, the elderly Mary Chu was happy to take personal ownership of Ang Lee's achievements. 'We feel very honoured to get four awards. For every Chinese person in Los Angeles, it's so exciting,' said Chu, who moved to the United States 39 years ago. Exciting but not surprising. 'I have imagined this for a long time,' she said. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won four Academy Awards on Sunday - Best Foreign-Language Film, Cinematography (Hong Kong's Peter Pau), Art Direction (Hong Kong's Tim Yip) and Score (Tan Dun).
The foreign-language film award was the first ever won by Asia, not counting 'honorary' awards given to Japan in the 1950s. Although the film was submitted by Taiwan, guests and hosts alike agreed that the award belonged to all Chinese, as demonstrated by Sunday's winners.
Interrupted frequently by laughter, whoops and shouts of 'we love you' from the guests, Ang Lee told the audience that his success was built on the backs of other Chinese film-makers.
'I think the achievement is an accumulation of all the endeavours that all Chinese film-makers have put in over the years. I think it is a great thing that such a cross-cultural event can happen . . . and I'm just very happy I'm participating in that,' he said.
