Ang Lee wins Oscar for best director
Taiwanese director Ang Lee with wife. (Photo/CNA)
"Thank you, movie god," Lee said during his acceptance speech.
"I cannot make this movie without the help of Taiwan. We shot there," he said, especially thanking Taichung City in central Taiwan, where the movie was made.
"Life of Pi," 80 percent of which was shot in Taiwan, was adapted from Canadian novelist Yann Martel's 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name.
It explores faith through tales of a shipwrecked boy adrift on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.
Lee won against Steven Spielberg, who directed "Lincoln," David O. Russell and his film "Silver Linings Playbook," Michael Haneke with "Amour" and Benh Zeitlin with "Beasts of the Southern Wild."
It was Lee's second Oscar for best director; he won his first in 2006 for the cowboy love story "Brokeback Mountain."
Lee, 58, has said the "Life of Pi" was the hardest film he's ever made. Much of the scenes were recreated using computer technology. Lee has credited Taiwan for being crucial in helping him make the film possible, saying by stepping out of Hollywood, he and his crew were able to come up with new ways of moviemaking.
"I really believe that a film with such difficulty could not have been made with the same budget and method in any place other than Taiwan," Lee said Sunday in a video that was shown at a lantern festival in Taichung.
"It's like I have brought my entire Hollywood team to Taiwan to build a dream with the young people of Taiwan and the colleagues there," said the director, who hired 3,000 cast and crew to work on the film, many of whom were Taiwanese.
In order to film most of the ocean scenes, Lee built a wave tank at the site of a former airport in Taichung, which the local government turned over to him.
Lee has said he found everything he needed in Taiwan, from beaches that look like they're from Mexico, to a French swimming pool, to props and zoo animals used in the opening scenes. It took Lee four and a half years to complete the film.
The 85th Academy Awards ceremony took place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
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