Ang Lee to be honored with DGA Lifetime Achievement Award

Taipei, Dec. 12 (CNA) Taiwanese American filmmaker Ang Lee (李安), who has won two Oscars and numerous other accolades over the years, has been named as the recipient of the Directors Guild of America's (DGA) 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Lee will be honored at the 77th Annual DGA Awards on Feb. 8 next year in recognition of his "extraordinary achievements in the art of cinema and motion picture direction," the 88-year-old organization announced Tuesday (U.S. time).

"Ang Lee is truly a master filmmaker. For over 30 years, he has directed a dynamic body of work that boldly cuts across genres - from period drama to comedy, adventure to western, superhero to martial arts - always fearlessly taking on new challenges, never repeating himself, and consistently achieving cinematic excellence," DGA President Lesli Linka Glatter is quoted as saying in a statement on the organization's website.

Lee, 70, has won two Academy Awards for best director -- for "Brokeback Mountain" and "Life of Pi" -- and is also a two-time Golden Globe Best Director winner for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain."

In the DGA announcement of Lee's latest honor, Glatter said that through his films, he "invites his audiences to explore complex characters that linger in your heart and mind long after the screen has gone dark."

In response, Lee said in the DGA statement that was it was a momentous achievement for him to be named for the Lifetime Achievement Award.

It is "an opportunity to reflect on what my work has meant to this amazing community of my fellow filmmakers," said Lee, who joined the DGA in 1996.

Born in Pingtung County, southern Taiwan in 1954, Lee graduated from National Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 then went on to study in the United States.

During his pursuit of a Masters Degree in Film Production at New York University, he served as an assistant director for a student film by Spike Lee, who was the DGA's last Lifetime Achievement Award recipient before Lee.

In 2021, Lee was honored with a Fellowship by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts -- the highest award given by the Academy.

In November, he became the first Taiwanese to receive the Praemium Imperiale, a global arts prize awarded annually by the Japan Art Association.