Ang Lee: A Diasporic Filmmaker

Ang Lee is considered by many the most successful Asian director working in Hollywood today. Lee has garnered international critical acclaim at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Awards, the Berlin International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival as well as the Venice Film Festival. Lee’s success started with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (originally Wo hu cang long) which “earned 200 million dollars worldwide”, thereby “outperforming all other Chinese-language films in Asia as an aggregate territory”, as well as being “the most commercially successful foreign-language film in U.S. history and the first Chinese-language film to find a mass American audience”, leading the film to be “the first foreign-language film to be nominated in ten categories and the first Asian-language film to be nominated for best picture” (Klein 18).

While many Film Scholars accuse Ang Lee of catering to the western gaze through self-orientalizing and self-exoticism, it should be considered that Lee, as a Taiwanese born shortly after the Taiwanese Exodus, has experienced diaspora threefold. This diaspora has not only shaped his image of Mainland China but also caused him to develop similar sensibilities to that of his Mainland Chinese fifth-generation filmmaker contemporaries. Like many of his contemporaries, such as Zhang Yimou, he too searches for his roots partially through fantastical-historical-Chinese films. Lee’s critics accuse Lee of misrepresenting China and its culture because he is catering to the western gaze. What they do not take into consideration is that his image of China has been formed by his diaspora.

Diaspora originally, “referred to the dispersion of the Greeks after the destruction of the city of Aegina, to the Jews after their Babylonian exile, and to the Armenians after Persian and Turkish invasions and expulsion in the mid-sixteenth century” (Naficy “An Accented Cinema” 13). The word derives from the Greek verb ‘Diaspeirein’ which means ‘to scatter’ or ‘to disperse’. With the rise of globalization and the accelerated movement of ethnoscapes and finanscapes, many members of various ethnicities began to disperse to other countries. Through the rise of globalization, we have experienced “transnational movements of capital, labor, ideas, information, cultural commodities…” (Tölölyan 4) Immigration of various forms, including war refugees, economic refugees or international labor forces, to primarily metropolitan areas, has created displaced communities within previously homogenous nations. Naficy in particular studies “film-makers who move physically across national boundaries, producing a body of work which I collectively call accented cinema, or accented to television” (Naficy “Multiplicity and Multiplexing in Today’s Cinemas” 13). According to Naficy diaspora “…often begins with trauma, rupture, and coercion, and it involves the scattering of populations to places outside their homeland. Sometimes, however, the scattering is caused by a desire for increased trade, for work…” (Naficy “An Accented Cinema” 14)

Tölöyan, another scholar interested in diaspora, argues that with the rise of globalization the phenomenon of diaspora has increased and therefore the definition of diaspora must be redefined to accommodate for the accelerated movement of various ethnoscapes. Tölöyan argues that ethnic groups removed from their homeland may begin to experience diaspora due to a host of factors:

It may be due to “accelerated immigration to the industrialized world”, however, “the host country’s legal, political, administrative and cultural-ideological apparatus for addressing immigration” can also cause the emergence of diaspora. “Racial differences, real or perceived religious incompatibilities and the proportion of immigrants relative to the indigenous population”, may also attribute to a rise of the diasporic sensation. (Tölöyan 20–24)

Naficy accepts Tölöyan’s new definition of diaspora and is interested in discussing how diaspora affects filmmakers: “For one thing, movement, displacement and globalization became endemic, on which basis many people, particularly film-makers and artists all over the world, are either forming or performing their identities” (Naficy “Multiplicity and Multiplexing in Today’s Cinemas” 13). Accented filmmakers, as Naficy refers to diasporic filmmakers, are predominantly, “…from the Third World, postcolonial and post-Soviet countries…” (Naficy “Multiplicity and Multiplexing in Today’s Cinemas” 13). The reason for the diasporic (accented) filmmakers to move to the West is because “of the failure of nationalism, socialism and communism…” (Naficy “Multiplicity and Multiplexing in Today’s Cinemas” 13).

Ang Lee’s work can and should be interpreted as the result of a complex diaspora. Lee is a unique case study of a diasporic filmmaker due to his Taiwanese roots. Born shortly after the exodus from Mainland China to Taiwan, Ang Lee was born during a period where the return to the Mainland was thought to be imminent; therefore Taiwan was seen only as a temporary home. Hence Ang Lee’s diaspora can be defined by the pre-1968 definition in terms of the original definition of diaspora, seeing that his family was forcefully thrown out of their home country.

However, Lee’s diaspora is complicated further by his Taiwanese-Chinese roots due to the fact that pre-1971, Taiwan was officially recognized by the UN as ‘The Republic of China’. In 1971 the UN “delegitimized” Taiwan as a country by no longer officially recognizing it. This was due to the changing relationship with ‘The People’s Republic of China’. The fact that Ang Lee grew up during a time in which his country was “officially” deemed “illegitimate” can only have further complicated the diaspora. At this point, I presume, it was also most likely clear to the first generation Chinese born Taiwanese as well as to the “Mainland Chinese Exodus Generation” that they would not be returning home to Mainland China.

Lee’s diasporic situation was further developed when he moved to the United States to first study and later work in the US film industry. The fact that he always kept his Taiwanese citizenship and his first three feature films were about Taiwan, displays his continued connection to his roots, and therefore his diaspora (Klein 23).

Thus Ang Lee’s diaspora is threefold, once as a Chinese born post-Exodus and during Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalistic regime, once growing up after the post-1971 UN declaration and lastly living and working in the United States. Additionally, Naficy’s guidelines clearly establish Ang Lee as an accented filmmaker. He was born in Taiwan, which to a degree was post-colonial in that it had recently been freed from Japanese rule. However, it should not be forgotten that the Mainland Chinese refugees to a degree colonized the island. Furthermore, Lee left Taiwan, ruled by a nationalistic party, for the United States in the pursuit of a higher education and job opportunities.

Not all scholars accept the examination of Lee’s filmography through the diasporic study. Through the years Lee has been labeled a self-orientalist who has capitulated to the western gaze and caters to a western audience. Edward Said has defined Orientalism as: “a Eurocentric perspective that reflects the domination of the West (the Occident) over the East (the Orient) from the early expansion of capitalism and imperialism to the present” (Said qtd. in Yang). Lee only began to have critics label him a self-orientalist after the release of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The film is set in historical China and inspired by ‘wu xia pian’, a Chinese action film genre focused on sword wielding. One such critic is Kenneth Chan who states that Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: “…evoked suspicions of stereotyping, exoticism, traditionalism, and pandering to a Western gaze, a critique grounded in the methodologies of Edward Said’s anti-Orientalism.” (Chan 3–4) Chan solidifies his position by stating: “The charge of inauthenticity is also leveled on cultural grounds. Specifically, the film is accused of inaccurately representing China’s history” (Chan 4). Chan is not alone in his assessment of Lee as a sell-out filmmaker, who has willfully capitulated his culture for financial benefits. Derek Elley, a film critic for Variety, wrote that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a:

…cleverly packaged chop suey… designed primarily to appeal to a general Western clientele.” Elley condemned Crouching Tiger as culturally inauthentic, asserting that its Asianness had been fatally corrupted by its absorption of Western cinematic conventions, and he damned Ang Lee as a “cultural chameleon”-an “international filmmaker who just happens to have been born and raised in Taiwan”-who did not belong in the canon of Asian filmmakers. (Elley qtd. in Klein 20)

While these critiques are harsh in tone, there is certainly merit to these claims. Textual evidence is brought forth by many of Lee’s harshest critics to prove their point. Chan uses the most recognizable scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to argue that Lee is catering to a western gaze by shooting Zhang Ziyi’s face in slow motion, thereby offering up Asian female beauty to the western males’ sexual objectifying gaze:

Consider, for instance, the camera’s seductive gaze on Zhang Ziyi’s face as strands of her black hair, blown by the gentle breeze, softly caress it, all captured in slow motion in the now-famous fight scene on a bamboo treetop. (Chan 6)

While it may seem as if this interpretation is true, due to the provided textual evidence, the interpretation is highly subjective and it almost seems as if Chan is placing a preconceived narrative onto the film. The fact that he defines a slow motion shot as a “seductive gaze” does not mean that it is a seductive gaze. The subjectivity of these types of interpretations can be proven simply by the fact that another reading of the same scene Chan has mentioned could be that Lee is actually fighting against the western gaze and western imperialism by drawing attention to Asian beauty through the portrayal of the female Asian subject in slow motion. Instead of capitulating beauty standards to western sensibilities, Lee is redefining and reclaiming Asian beauty standards independently from the West by spending more time on an Asian woman’s face with a slow motion shot. Whether either of these claims is what Lee intend with the slow-motion shot will remain uncertain, due to the subjectivity of interpretations.

Chan, Elley and other critics of Lee’s, fail to recognize that using textual evidence is highly subjective. They further fail to acknowledge any counter-argument to their claims. Neither of the two considers, for example, the fact that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was shot exclusively in Mandarin as well as on location in China. This seems to indicate that Lee was consciously trying to strive for “authenticity”. If he were truly capitulating and catering to the western gaze, in particular Hollywood, then he would have shot the film in English. He did not, rather choosing to shoot the film in Mandarin and premiering the film with subtitles. If he were as concerned with the western gaze as some of his critics make him out to be, he would have premiered the movie in English, as not to disenfranchise or alienate the lucrative American audience, which is not fond of subtitled movies.

This claim is further supported by Lee’s next Chinese film Lust, Caution (originally Se, jie). A historical drama set in China during World War Two:

The film also presupposes a fairly advanced understanding of the conflicts and divided loyalties within China during World War Two; notably, the film lacks any explanatory text in the opening frames that is a common feature of historical dramas. (Dilley 56)

Lust, Caution is an interesting case seeing that it first premiered at the International Venice Film Festival. At the festival, it was well received and even honored with the Golden Lion. However, Dilley suggests that due to there being no explanatory text a la Star Wars, the Western audience, which most likely does not have a deep understanding of modern Chinese history, is therefore completely lost in the intricacies of the socio-political landscape portrayed in the film. Lee requires, and perhaps expects, his audience to know the historical context before viewing Lust, Caution. Again, if he were interested in the financial benefits of catering to the Western audience, he would have added an explanatory text at the beginning of the film. In fact, according to Rey Chow, Lust, Caution enjoyed, “an overwhelming box-office success in the Chinese-speaking world…” (Chow 557), which only would further suggest that Lee is not interested in making movies that appeal exclusively to the western audience, but also to a Chinese audience. In fact, based on Lee’s entire filmography one can assume he aims to serve a global audience.

Lee’s strive for “authenticity” is further exemplified by the titles of his Chinese films, which are mostly direct translations. Dilley argues that the direct translation of titles leads to othering: “in the Ang Lee film Eat Drink Man Woman, [the], title alone impresses “otherness” for the native English speaker…” (Dilley 46) Lee’s direct translation of the original Chinese Titles and Chinese idioms, “Eat Drink Man Woman is a direct translation of a common Chinese idiom (yinshi nannii)” (Dilley 46–47), should rather be seen as an example of Lee not capitulating to the Western audience. Rather it is an example of Lee’s strive for “authenticity”, seeing that also Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is translated directly from Chinese into English 藏龙卧虎 (Yuan), as well as Lust, Caution: “Adapted from a short story of the same title by Eileen Chang…” (Chow 557)

The fact that Lee does not seem to be worried about dissociating the western audience by either directly translating his Chinese titles, shooting his films in Mandarin and requiring his audience to know about Chinese history, all contest Chan’s and Elley’s claims that Lee has capitulated to the western gaze. However, these do not entirely dispute Chan’s or Elley’s statements. Nor will any other argument, seeing that these readings are highly subjective. However, if one were to view Lee’s filmography as that of a diasporic filmmaker, one may be able to explain certain critiques raised by Chan, Elley and others.

Lee is a diasporic Chinese filmmaker, not a diasporic Taiwanese filmmaker, as is evident by his own statement:

I’m not a native Taiwanese… But when we go back to China, we’re Taiwanese. Then, I live in the States; I’m a sort of foreigner everywhere… the sentiment of being Chinese is different in New York than it is in Taiwan or in China. Wherever you come from, whether it’s China or Hong Kong or Taiwan, in New York, you’re just Chinese… (Lee qtd. in Wu 10)

Acknowledging Lee’s complex diaspora then helps one understand his films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which Klein states is “Lee’s…personal “homecoming of sorts”, and that “…Lee is working with a fundamentally diasporic notion of homecoming” (Klein 22). Lee himself has stated that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, “is a kind of dream of China, a China that probably never existed, except in my boyhood fantasies in Taiwan. Of course, my childhood imagination was fired by the martial arts movies I grew up with…” (Lee qtd. in Chan 7) Chan interprets this statement as follows: “His conceptualization of the film as a dream of a China “that probably never existed” reflects a nostalgia not for a China of yester-year but a hope for a better China, politically and culturally” (Chan 7). Again, Chan ignores Lee’s diasporic background, which caused Lee to find “out about the old China, from my parents, my education, and those kung fu movies… I had this image in my mind, from movies…. So I projected these images as my China, the China in my head” (Lee qtd. in Klein 23). Due to Lee’s upbringing in Taiwan, which as discussed earlier is a unique case of diaspora, the China in Lee’s mind was the result of a mixture of various second-hand sources. One such second-hand source being his parents remembering their life in China, most likely corrupted by nostalgia. Another second-hand source being the history taught in school, which was regulated by the nationalistic party and lastly, and perhaps the most influential second-hand source for Lee: Hong-Kong kung-fu movies, which themselves are not necessarily “authentically” Chinese seeing that it is a portrayal of China being constructed by Hong Kong Chinese instead of Mainland Chinese.

Klein’s and Chan’s interpretations are subjective and both seemingly approach Lee’s filmography with a certain preconceived narrative or notion. Analyzing the Asian box office of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon may give some insight into how the general audience regarded the film. Klein reports that: “the film… broke box-office records in Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan; performed respectably but behind local and Hollywood productions in Hong Kong and Korea; and produced dismal box-office numbers in China” (Klein 36). It is not surprising that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was well received in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, seeing that all three are hubs of the Chinese diaspora. The reason the film was not well received in Hong Kong may be due to the fact that Hong Kong domestic audiences are used to Wu Xia Pain films and that the production value of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon does not succeed that of the respective domestic film industries. Additionally, these territories do not experience Chinese Diaspora in the same manner as Singapore, Malaysia or Taiwan.

Lee’s reception in China and Hong Kong is very similar to that of many of his contemporary fifth generation Chinese filmmakers:

…Typically, the narratives of these films [by the fifth generation directors] are set in rural China in some unspecific period of time and expose the backwardness of the traditional ways of Chinese life…[and]…they also failed to engage Chinese film audiences at large. (Zhang 274)

While both Lee and fifth generation filmmakers may set some of their movies in a distant, rural China, and their films are not well received by Chinese audiences, this is not the only similarity. “Fifth generation films are also called “root-seeking” (xungen) films…” (Zhang 274) Lee’s Taiwanese Trilogy as well as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Lust, Caution can be classified as xungen (“root-seeking”) films, in that Lee is seeking his Taiwanese and Chinese roots. Lee and fifth generation filmmakers share further commonalities. According to Zhang, fifth generation (root-seeking) filmmaker’s are pursuing a “new identity [that] reflects and is derived from the traditions that are at the core of Chinese culture”. Zhang defines these “core values” as:

…The immortality of the soul (linghui bumie)…The naturalistic sense of the unity of nature and man (tianren heyi) and its political and ethical application of the Great One (dayitong), [and finally]…the pursuit of good fortune and avoidance of misfortune (quji bixiong) and the practice of following local customs (ruxiangsuisu). (Zhang 274–276)

Zhang agrees with the analysis of diasporic Chinese filmmakers, in particular Ang Lee, sharing similar sensibilities with fifth generation filmmakers:

Diaspora Chinese films also strongly reflect this aspect [quji bixiong and ruxiangsuisu], for example, in Wedding Banquet (Ang Lee 1993), one’s good fortune lies in the marriage and descendants, accompanied with all symbolic objects and actions. These examples of folklore are also evident in other films, such as Pushing Hands (Ang Lee 1992), Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee 1994)… (Zhang 276)

Lee differs in his pursuit of finding his roots, in that it is fueled and triggered by his diaspora:

My desire to direct a martial arts film comes from nostalgia for classical China. The greatest appeal of the kung-fu world lies in its abstractions. It is a conceptual world based upon ‘’imaginary China.’’ This world does not exist in reality and is therefore free from its constraints. Here, I can express sentimentality… (Lee qtd. in Wu 2)

Wu agrees with the analysis that Lee shares common sensibilities with the fifth generation filmmakers:

As if in a déjà vu, criticism that was launched against Fifth Generation filmmakers (particularly Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou) in the late 80s and 90s by people in China or others identifying themselves as ‘’Chinese,’’ is now reverberating in the discussion of Ang Lee. (Wu 4)

It is at this point where one must decide for oneself, whether or not Lee is a global filmmaker, an East Asian filmmaker or a western filmmaker. Having started out with a small budget, Taiwanese-government funded trilogy but having moved on to making big Hollywood blockbusters, Lee’s position in the film canon is hard to define, as is suggested by Dilley: “No director of modern film seems to contribute more to the debate on globalization, in the sense of blurring the distinctions between cultural identities and plumbing their interrelationships, than does Ang Lee.” (Dilley 50) Lee, as previously stated, draws heavily from Hong Kong action films. Leon Hunt and Wing-Fai Leung in their articles on East Asian Cinema, discussed the idea that Asian action cinema is “not only a peripheral resource to be plundered but a pioneer of ‘global’ popular cinema” (Hunt and Leung 233). Based on Lee’s various personal statements, it is obvious that he strongly admires Asian action cinema and is truly inspired by it. With Lee positioned as one of the most successful and established Asian directors in Hollywood, he is able to further the global film canon through his filmography. Lee fuses the western and eastern sensibilities in his work, thereby contributing, furthering and defining to the global film canon. It is because of Lee’s attempt to fuse Asian and Western sensibilities and techniques, that Lee is criticized:

…He [Lee], tried to combine both Eastern and Western concepts in Crouching Tiger…Critics in both North America and Europe have applauded the result. The Chinese…are not interested. “Since it’s a kung-fu movie, you can’t just make it according to your own sensibility,” said theater manager Xu Zhongren. “You have to adjust for a mainland Chinese audience” (Berry and Farquhar 79–80).

Lee’s critics view this fusion of sensibilities as a capitulation and assimilation to the western gaze, and as a commodification of Chinese culture. Although Lee attempts to be as authentic as possible he is unable to truly capture and display China to the satisfaction of many Mainland Chinese. This is because he is a diasporic Chinese director not a homegrown, Mainland Chinese director; therefore his sensibilities and more importantly his image of Mainland China are different but not less valuable.

Works Cited:

Berry, Christopher J., and Mary Ann Farquhar. China on Screen: Cinema and Nation, Columbia University Press, 2006.

Chan, Kenneth. “The Global Return of the Wu Xia Pian (Chinese Sword-Fighting Movie): Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Cinema Journal, no. 4, 2004, p. 3.

Chow, Rey. “Guest Column: Framing the Original: Toward a New Visibility of the Orient.” PMLA, vol. 126, no. 3, 2011, pp. 555–563.

Dilley, Whitney Crothers. “Globalization and Cultural Identity in the Films of Ang Lee.” Style 43.1 (2009): 45,64,135,138.

Hunt, Leon and Leung, Wing-Fai. East Asian Cinemas. [Electronic Resource]: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film. London: New York: I.B. Tauris, ©2008., 2008. Tauris world cinema series.

Klein, Christina. “‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’: A Diasporic Reading.” Cinema Journal, vol. 43, no. 4, 2004, pp. 18–42.

Naficy, Hamid. An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2001., 2001.

Naficy, Hamid. “Multiplicity and Multiplexing in Today’s Cinemas: Diasporic Cinema, Art Cinema, and Mainstream Cinema.” Journal of Media Practice, vol. 11, no. 1, Mar. 2010, pp. 11–20.

Tölölyan, K. “Rethinking Diaspora(s): Stateless Power in the Transnational Moment.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, vol. 5 no. 1, 1996, pp. 3–36.

Wu, Chia-Chi. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is Not a Chinese Film.” Spectator — The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television 22.1 (2002): 65–79.

Yang, Philip Q. “Orientalism.” Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2014.

Yuan, Haiwang. “Chinese Proverbs.” Chinese Proverbs, WKU Libraries, 13 Oct. 2014, people.wku.edu/haiwang.yuan/China/proverbs/c.html.

Zhang, Juwen. “Filmic Folklore and Chinese Cultural Identity.” Western Folklore, no. 3/4, 2005, p. 263.

Filmography:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo hu cang long). Dir. Ang Lee, Sony Picture Classic, 2000

Eat Drink Man Woman (Yin shi nan nu). Dir. Ang Lee, The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1994

Lust, Caution (Se, jie). Dir. Ang Lee, Focus Features, 2007

With mention of:

Pushing Hands (Tui shou). Dir. Ang Lee, NA, 1992

The Wedding Banquet (Xi yan). Dir. Ang Lee, The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1993