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Two Films by Ang Lee
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229 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 1994
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About the author
Ang Lee
30 books3 followersFrom Wikipedia:
Ang Lee OBS (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Lee's earlier films, such as The Wedding Banquet, Pushing Hands, and Eat Drink Man Woman explored the relationships and conflicts between tradition and modernity, Eastern and Western. Lee also deals with repressed, hidden emotions in many of his films, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, Hulk, and Brokeback Mountain. Lee's work is known for its emotional charge, which critics believe is responsible for his success in offsetting cultural barriers and achieving international recognition.
Ang Lee OBS (Chinese: 李安; pinyin: Lǐ Ān; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Lee's earlier films, such as The Wedding Banquet, Pushing Hands, and Eat Drink Man Woman explored the relationships and conflicts between tradition and modernity, Eastern and Western. Lee also deals with repressed, hidden emotions in many of his films, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, Hulk, and Brokeback Mountain. Lee's work is known for its emotional charge, which critics believe is responsible for his success in offsetting cultural barriers and achieving international recognition.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 13, 2022
Continuing with my edification in screenwriting, I for some reason went with two more films directed by him. Though Eat Drink Man Woman was cowritten by Hui Ling Wang and James Schamus and Wedding Banquet by Neil Peng and again James Schamus, Ang Lee is quickly becoming one of my favorite filmmakers. I think I’ve only seen his first three films, and none of the more commercially successful blockbusters he’s done recently, but the undercurrent in these two films and Sense & Sensibility is that of social repression, something I find both very relatable coming from an Asian background myself and also a theme I’m trying to explore in my gay nun movie.
I actually read The Wedding Banquet first, because I had seen the film recently. Like the film, the screenplay is obviously perfect, and I honestly don’t have much to say because I’m not really sure if reading scripts that I’ve seen the movie of is very effective at teaching me anything. I do think that Wedding Banquet, which is about a gay Taiwanese man who marries a woman to appease his parents, is how stories about cultural differences should be told: through comedy. If I have to sit through another MFA graduate’s drama about first-generation immigrants I’ll tear my eyes out, but when Lee tackles the subject matter with humor, the effect is one of compassion instead of gawky sensationalism. The one complaint I have about this publication is the script gives no way of indicating what language the dialogue is in; the film, which is about a Taiwanese family in Manhattan, is fully bilingual, and I’m not sure someone who hadn’t seen the movie would pick up on the nuances.
I’ve seen Eat Drink Man Woman before, but it’s been a number of years so I didn’t remember any of the plot twists (there are many). Set in Taipei, it’s about a single father who lives with three unmarried daughters… if it sounds like a Jane Austen novel, the resemblance is entirely coincidental. But this script contains the line “what do you know of my heart,” as does Emma Thompson’s S&S script. It’s a perfect comedy of manners that is helping me learn to write what’s left unsaid. This book also includes six recipes that Mr. Chu cooks in the movie, which was a delightful surprise!
I actually read The Wedding Banquet first, because I had seen the film recently. Like the film, the screenplay is obviously perfect, and I honestly don’t have much to say because I’m not really sure if reading scripts that I’ve seen the movie of is very effective at teaching me anything. I do think that Wedding Banquet, which is about a gay Taiwanese man who marries a woman to appease his parents, is how stories about cultural differences should be told: through comedy. If I have to sit through another MFA graduate’s drama about first-generation immigrants I’ll tear my eyes out, but when Lee tackles the subject matter with humor, the effect is one of compassion instead of gawky sensationalism. The one complaint I have about this publication is the script gives no way of indicating what language the dialogue is in; the film, which is about a Taiwanese family in Manhattan, is fully bilingual, and I’m not sure someone who hadn’t seen the movie would pick up on the nuances.
I’ve seen Eat Drink Man Woman before, but it’s been a number of years so I didn’t remember any of the plot twists (there are many). Set in Taipei, it’s about a single father who lives with three unmarried daughters… if it sounds like a Jane Austen novel, the resemblance is entirely coincidental. But this script contains the line “what do you know of my heart,” as does Emma Thompson’s S&S script. It’s a perfect comedy of manners that is helping me learn to write what’s left unsaid. This book also includes six recipes that Mr. Chu cooks in the movie, which was a delightful surprise!
February 12, 2008
It is interesting, I think, to read a screenplay before one has seen a movie. I do prefer the movies over the screenplays, and they are good movies.
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March 1, 2013beauty.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews