(February 28, 2001) — Take a Wang Du Lu novel and mix it with some technological martial arts magic and what do you get? The crowning acheivement of Ang Lee’s career and one of the best martial arts films of all time. This has been a phenomenal year for Lee as his latest film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” swept up motion picture nominations this year. In contrast to the film’s instantaneous success in the U.S., Lee’s career has been anything but an overnight success. There is more to the Taiwanese-American director than a crouching tiger and a hidden dragon. Lee proved to be a formidable opponent at the Golden Globes earlier this year, taking the awards for Best Director and Best Foreign Film for “Crouching Tiger.” Now with the 73rd annual Academy Awards just around the corner, Lee’s latest chef d’oeuvre continues to nip at the heels of “Gladiator,” trailing by only two nods. “Crouching Tiger” also sent a shock wave throughout the Academy, shattering “Life is Beautiful”’s record of seven nominations for a foreign film. In order to pull off such a successful film, Lee paid careful attention to the slightest details. According to several interviews, the mainstream Mandarin dialect was chosen to authenticate the film. In an interview with the Asian edition of Time magazine, Michelle Yeoh said that Lee’s standards in perfecting the dialogue “builds character.” The dedicated director studied martial arts techniques in order to make each character’s movement an extension of his or her identity. Prior to the successful martial arts love story, Lee’s résumé includes earlier critically acclaimed foreign feature-films such as “The Wedding Banquette” and “Eat Drink, Man Woman,” each receiving nods as Best Foreign Language Films by the Academy. Lee’s 1993 feature release “The Wedding Banquette” was the first Taiwanese film to be nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Academy Awards. Lee’s recognition also extends to his work for the English-feature “Sense and Sensibility” which received seven nods from the Academy in 1995. While talks are underway for a prequel to “Crouching Tiger,” Lee has reportedly signed on to direct the upcoming movie-version of Marvel Comics’ superhero “The Incredible Hulk,” due for release in 2003.