NEW YORK — Renowned filmmaker Ang Lee, celebrated for his works such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Brokeback Mountain,” is set to be honored with the Directors Guild of America’s lifetime achievement award.
The guild announced this milestone on Tuesday, revealing that the 70-year-old director will receive the accolade during the 77th DGA Awards scheduled for February 8.
This prestigious honor, regarded as the DGA’s greatest recognition, has been awarded to 36 directors throughout the guild’s 88-year history, with Spike Lee being the most recent recipient in 2022.
“Ang Lee is truly a master filmmaker,” expressed Lesli Linka Glatter, the DGA president, in a statement.
“For over three decades, he has created an impressive array of films spanning multiple genres—ranging from period pieces to comedies, action-packed adventures to westerns, superhero tales to martial arts epics—always tackling new challenges with courage, never repeating himself, and consistently achieving cinematic excellence.”
Ang Lee himself shared his gratitude, stating, “I am honored to be recognized in such an incredible way by my beloved guild.
Receiving the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award is profoundly meaningful to me and serves as a moment to reflect on the impact my work has had on this remarkable community of fellow filmmakers.”
Among Lee’s significant filmography are titles such as the 1995 adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility,” the 1997 drama “The Ice Storm,” 2003’s superhero film “Hulk,” and the 2012 Oscar-winning “Life of Pi.”
The Taiwan-born director has been awarded the Oscar for Best Director twice, for “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi.”
His most recent project was the 2019 action film “Gemini Man,” featuring Will Smith and notable for its innovative shooting speed of 120 frames per second.
At a recent event in Tokyo, where Lee received the Praemium Imperiale Award, he remarked on the gap in his filmmaking endeavors, admitting, “I haven’t made a movie for six years, and I don’t know where to start again.”
He emphasized the need for transformation in the film industry, stating, “Cinema needs a drastic change.
If we continue down the same path, it will be a dead end. We need something that will make audiences marvel again.”
