Taipei - Taiwan's government presented director Ang Lee with an award of 20 million Taiwan dollars (600,000 dollars) Tuesday after his movie Se, Jie (Lust, Caution,) won the coveted Golden Lion for best film at the 64th Venice Film Festival earlier this month.
Lee, 52, had flown home to Taiwan for the premier of the movie on Monday.
While the film is a great tale of lust and espionage, many Taiwanese believe that without any inside knowledge of Chinese history, it would be difficult for foreigners to follow because the plot is too complex.
Hailing Lee as 'the glory of Taiwan,' the country now wants Lust, Caution to run for the best foreign-language Oscar in 2008.
But film critics and many Taiwanese, who have seen the film, say that while it is a great movie, the chances of winning the Oscar are slim because the plot is 'too complex for foreigners.'
'Lee did an excellent job of analyzing the minds of the two leading characters - Wong Chia-chi and Mr Yee. The filming and acting are both great, but the Chinese history is too hard for foreigners,' film critic Wen Tian-hsiang told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
When Lust, Caution was shown at the Venice Film Festival, some foreign film critics found it boring and chided Lee for showing too much lust and throwing caution to the wind.
As he felt he had hardly any chance of winning the top prize, Lee had already left Venice when he was called back to pick up the coveted Golden Lion on September 8.
Although the film received the strictest rating in the United States and Hong Kong and Chinese censors cut seven minutes of nude scenes, it is being shown in its entirety in Taiwan.
'The sex scenes are the necessary part of the film, but not the focus,' Lee told reporters in Venice, Hong Kong and Taipei.
Lust, Caution was adapted from Lust, Caution, a 20-page novella by Chinese writer Ailing Chang and focuses on a group of patriotic Shanghai university students plotting to assassinate Mr Yee, the intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government during World War II, when China was occupied by Japan.
The students asked Wong Chia-chi, a fellow student, to seduce Yee in order to pave the way for the assassination. Wong became Yee's mistress but they fell in love with each other and it cost her life.
When Wong lured Yee to a jewellery shop to buy a ring, the students surrounded the shop to kill Yee, but Wong let him escape.
Yee ordered the arrest of all six 'resistance students' including Wong and executed them.
Hong Kong star Tony Leung brought the character of Yee back to life by presenting a nervous and pervert Yee, who was married but needed someone to talk to by way of relaxation.
China's new actress Tang Wei played the role of Wong Chia-chi - a shy, but emotional and patriotic Shanghai girl who falls in love with Yee.
Though still not as famous as China's world-renowned Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi, Tang, 27, succeeded in portraying Wong's complex inner world mostly through her eyes and was highly praised by Lee who has nurtured several world-famous actors including Zhang Ziyi.
'I did five auditions to search for the actress for Wong Chia-chi. When I saw Tang Wei, I told myself 'I have found her. She is Wong Chia-chi,'' Ang Lee told reporters in Taipei.
Contrary to press reports, while Lust, Caution's three sex scenes are long, detailed and sometimes violent, they are not pornographic.
There were several nude shots of Leung but no frontal ones. Tang Wei showed off more by walking quickly across a darkened room in the nude.
Lee said he decided to make the film because he was moved by Ailing Chang's novel Lust, Caution.
'This is her best novel and I am haunted by it. I want my film to serve as a bridge for young Chinese so that they can understand China's modern history, understand how millions of Chinese youth laid down their lives to save the country,' he said.
Ang Lee is the most renowned of the current generation of Taiwan directors. After finishing college, he went to study film-making at New York University and later became a US citizen.
But he did not direct any film for six years after graduating from university and instead stayed at home to look after his children.
His luck changed in 1991, when his Pushing Hands won three awards at Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival.
Lee burst onto the world stage in 1993 when his gay film Wedding Banquet won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2001, his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Oscar for the best-foreign picture and his Brokeback Mountain, also a gay film, won Oscars for best director and best foreign language picture in 2006.
When asked about his next film at a news conference in Taipei, Lee said he was exhausted from spending the past year shooting the movie, and added: 'I need to take a long rest to recuperate. As for the next film I have not begun to think about it yet. Usually I don't look for the idea, the idea comes to me,' he said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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