Taiwanese-born director Ang Lee on Saturday won the Directors' Guild award for "outstanding directorial achievement in feature film" for his film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
The award gave Lee, who has received an Oscar nomination for best director, an important boost in the build up to the Oscars ceremony in just over two weeks.
Lee, whose martial arts film is up for best film of the year and best foreign film of the year in the Oscars, told the audience -- including some of the most prestigious directors in Hollywood: "Wow, this is too much. The timing is good. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
He beat Cameron Crowe who was nominated for "Almost Famous", Ridley Scott who was nominated for "Gladiator", and Steven Soderbergh, who was nominated for "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich".
(China Daily 03/11/2001)
