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Ang Lee wins Best Director at the 78th Annual Academy Awards  (Credits– oscars.org)

LOS ANGELES  March 06, 2006  -- ANG LEE won the Academy Award as Best Director Sunday for the cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain," becoming the first Asian to win Hollywood's top honor for filmmakers.

Adept at genres from Westerns to historical romance to martial-arts pageants, Lee won his Oscar for a purely American story about two men tragically swept up in a gay romance that they conceal from their families for two decades.

"Well, I wish I knew how to quit you," Lee said, smiling and clutching his Oscar.

The characters "taught all of us who made `Brokeback Mountain' so much about not only gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important the greatness of love itself."

"Brokeback Mountain" earned Lee the best-director honor at key earlier Hollywood awards, including the Directors Guild of America ceremony and the Golden Globes.

At 51, Lee scored an Oscar triumph in Hollywood unmatched even by Asia's most acclaimed filmmaker, the late Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, whose career spanned five decades. Kurosawa received an honorary Oscar in 1990, delivered a foreign-language winner with 1975's "Dersu Uzala" and was nominated for best-director for 1985's "Ran," but did not win.

Born in Taiwan, Lee first came to Hollywood's notice with the romantic charmers "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman," which earned back-to-back Oscar nominations for foreign-language film for 1993 and 1994.

Since then, Lee has been a chameleon. He made the Jane Austen costume romance "Sense and Sensibility," a best-picture nominee; the stark American drama "The Ice Storm"; the Western "Ride With the Devil"; and the martial-arts epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which won the Oscar for foreign-language film five years ago.

"Crouching Tiger" also was a best-picture and best-director nominee at the Oscars.

His "Crouching Tiger" follow-up was the comic-book adaptation "Hulk," an unusual commercial departure for the independent-minded director.

Lee joked about his commercial foray at Saturday's Independent Spirit Awards, where "Brokeback Mountain" won best picture and director. "Crouching Tiger" took the same prizes at the Spirit Awards five years earlier.

"It's been five years since the last time I stood here. Between `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and `Brokeback Mountain,' I made `The Hulk,'" Lee said, drawing a big laugh from the Spirit Awards crowd. "But in my mind I've never left the independent spirit."

Ang Lee winning the Best Director for Brokeback Mountain

2006 78th Annual Academy Awards Results 

In one of the most stunning upsets in Hollywood history, "Crash," a story of racial tensions in Los Angeles, took home the best picture prize at the 78th Academy Awards presentation Sunday night.

Written and directed by Paul Haggis, "Crash" won a total of three Academy Awards, including best screenplay, tying with "Brokeback Mountain," "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "King Kong," the latter film winning exclusively for the technical categories.

"We are humbled by the other nominees in this category,'' said "Crash" producer Cathy Schulman about taking home the award for best picture. "You have made this year one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American cinema."

Going into the evening, "Brokeback Mountain" was touted as a sure thing for best picture, having won the Golden Globe and numerous critics' prizes. The announcement of "Crash," by presenter Jack Nicholson, astonished the audience at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. It also sent journalists scurrying back to their word processors to recast their prewritten stories about a "Brokeback" juggernaut.

Until that 11th-hour announcement, the evening had gone pretty much as expected, with Ang Lee winning best director for "Brokeback Mountain," Philip Seymour Hoffman winning as best actor for his brilliant work as Truman Capote in "Capote," and best actress honors going to Reese Witherspoon for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line."

Indeed, the victory for Lee seemed to erase what little doubt there may have remained about a best-picture victory for "Brokeback Mountain." It's rare when the best picture and best director awards don't go to the same film.

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Seymour Hoffman Capote

Ang Lee Brokeback Mountain

Reese Witherspoon Walk the Line

George Clooney Syrianna

Zhang Ziyi Memoirs of a Geisha

Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice

Crash Best Picture

Brokeback Mountain Best Direction

2006 78th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS  

Best Documentary Feature MARCH OF THE PENGUINS Luc Jacquet and Yves Darondeau Best Foreign Language Film of the Year TSOTSI South Africa Achievement in Film Editing CRASH Hughes Winborne Achievement in Cinematography MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA Dion Beebe Achievement in Visual Effects KING KONG Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers and Richard Taylor Adapted Screenplay BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN Screenplay by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana Original Screenplay CRASH Screenplay by Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco; Story by Paul Haggis Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Rachel Weisz THE CONSTANT GARDENER Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role George Clooney SYRIANA Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Philip Seymour Hoffman CAPOTE Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Reese Witherspoon WALK THE LINE Achievement in Directing BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN Ang Lee Best Motion Picture of the Year CRASH Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year WALLACE & GROMIT IN THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT Nick Park and Steve Box Best Live Action Short Film SIX SHOOTER Martin McDonagh Best Animated Short Film THE MOON AND THE SON: AN IMAGINED CONVERSATION John Canemaker and Peggy Stern Achievement in Costume Design MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA Colleen Atwood Achievement in Makeup THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE Howard Berger and Tami Lane Best Documentary Short Subject A NOTE OF TRIUMPH: THE GOLDEN AGE OF NORMAN CORWIN Corinne Marrinan and Eric Simonson   Achievement in Art Direction MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA John Myhre (Art Direction); Gretchen Rau (Set Decoration) Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN Gustavo Santaolalla   Achievement in Sound Mixing KING KONG Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges and Hammond Peek Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) "IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP" FROM HUSTLE & FLOW Music and Lyric by Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard   Achievement in Sound Editing KING KONG Mike Hopkins and Ethan Van der Ryn