Ang Lee movie wins Venice top prize
Saturday, 08 Sep 2007 16:25
Ang Lee has won his second Golden Lion in three years
Ang Lee's sexually explicit thriller Lust, Caution has scooped the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice film festival.
The second world war-era Shanghai set film was voted as the festival's best by the seven member jury, which was led this year by Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers).
The runner-up Silver Lion prize at the 64th Venice festival was shared between Todd Haynes' quasi-Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There and La Graine et le Mulet by Tunisian-born director Abdellatif Kechiche.
Six actors play legendary musician Dylan in I'm Not There, including Cate Blanchett, who scooped a best actress award for her efforts.
The best actor award was handed to Brad Pitt for his portrayal of Jesse James in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Brian De Palma meanwhile won best director for his controversial drama-documentary Redacted, which presents the shocking real-life rape and killing of an Iraqi girl and her family by US marines and the American public's reaction to the appalling crimes.
Elsewhere Paul Laverty won the best script prize for his work on Ken Loach's It's a Free World, while Italian film-maker Bernardo Bertolucci was presented with a special lifetime achievement Golden Lion award.
Two years ago Taiwanese director Lee was awarded the Leone D'Oro for the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain.
Based on a short story by Chinese author Eileen Chang, Lust, Caution is set in Shanghai amid the Japanese invasion of the second world war.
It features a plot by members of the Chinese resistance to kill a collaborator by using an attractive young woman as bait.
The film's inclusion at the Venice film festival was controversial in itself however after it was classified as Taiwan, China, implying that the island state was part of China itself.
But Sense and Sensibility director Lee told reporters in Venice: "I think it is more important to show the movie. I leave it to the politicians and the festival."