Oscar-winning director Ang Lee gets SCUBA certified in SP!

Acclaimed contemporary filmmaker, Ang Lee arrived in Ambergris Caye, Belize for a few days of sun and left a certified SCUBA diver. Lee took his certification course with White Sands Dive Instructor, Samuel Lin. Lee was accompanied by his two sons, Mason and Haan who also took the course and became certified divers as well.

    Lee, who has directed movies such as Brokeback Mountain and Hulk, is working on his latest movie - Life of Pi. According to movie insiders, quite a bit of the film takes place underwater and it was for this reason that Lee decided to get certified. What better place to receive the course than Ambergris Caye.

    After receiving his full certification, Lee along with PADI staff instructor for White Sands, Elbert Greer, visited Hol Chan Marine Reserve for a night dive. During this dive, Lee observed Bio-illuminant creatures in Belizean waters.

    Born in 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, Ang Lee has become one of today's greatest contemporary filmmakers. A graduate of the National Taiwan College of Arts and the University of Illinois and New York University, Lee began his career by serving as Assistant Director on Spike Lee's student film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. After writing a couple screenplays, he eventually appeared in the film scene with Tui shou. He continued with his great work garnering Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Sense and Sensibility was his first Hollywood-mainstream movie. His career continued with works such as The Ice Storm, Ride with the Devil, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Chosen.

    During his visit to Ambergris Caye, Lee stayed at Azul Resort and dined at Rojo Lounge, among others.

San Pedro Sun

Hes a real down-to-earth guy. I expected a big ego that movie directors are noted for but found a super nice guy and his polite and respectful sons.
Good experience all round.

He wanted to see the sharks so we took him to one of the popular feeding sites, ...he didn't expect to bleed for it.

GOOD GOING ELBERT! Thanks for sharing.

awesome!

He had an interesting thing to say about his films, He said that it was curious that the ones he won the awards for were not his favorite films, He said, 'Lust, Caution' was the one he was the most proud of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CizN-DvGhrc

Isn't that the way of the world? We do some things to make money to pay for the things we love. Some people are fortunate enough to find a way that they are one and the same.

Yes , very true, like when i retire i'm moving to a little caribbean island, build a house on the beach and spend my time birdwatching and diving! :-)

good luck with that!!!
:>

Thanks again for all of Sams and your help Elbert. Ang and the boys had a great trip. True pros you are!!

Crouching Tiger Shark?
Director Ang Lee spends some quality time learning how to dive in Belize. "It's for the book," our man is told

Shinan Govani, National Post


Life of Pi's long, torturous course to the big screen inched ever closer to reality when Ang Lee threw on some flippers in Belize the other day.

The stately director -- now attached to the adaptation of the hit Canadian book -- was out and below in Ambergris Caye. Consider it project breathe-through-your-nose. In other words: Ang came for the sun; left as a certified diver.

"It's related to the book," I'm told. The bestselling, Booker Prize-winning novel does, after all, have quite a bit of underwater action. And Lee, ever the professional, presumably wanted to get in some primary research.

At home in the second longest barrier reef in the world -- and the plain longest in the Western Hemisphere -- the man behind Brokeback Mountain, Sense and Sensibility, and Ice Storm, among films, no doubt picked up a few camera-angle tips.

A few months ago, Lee told an interviewer that he'd "cracked" the structure of the movie. This, after the project had been stuck for some time in the unholy place that movie insiders call "development hell," and after it had been baton-tossed from director to director ( M. Night Shyamalan, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Alfonso Cuaron among them)

Why the drama? Well, it may be the hard-to-"crack" set-up of the book, written by that pay-dirt-hitting (and Stephen Harper enemy numero something) Yann Martel. The allegorical story concerns little Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, who survives a shipwreck only to find himself adrift in a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a 450-pound tiger.

The fully certifiable Lee says he expects to deliver his movie in another two years.

I hope he liked Belize enough to shoot it here!

Where did he stay?

Azul

That was a great book. It should make an interesting movie. So much of the story is a one person act - kinda like Castaway. Maybe hard to find the right kid.


It should be in the same league as Kite Runner and Slumdog Millionaire.