Ang Lee’s latest directorial effort, Lust, Caution, will not be allowed to vie for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar when the awards are given out Feb 24 next year.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences deemed the film ineligible for the category, as there was an insufficient number of Taiwanese in control of the film’s artistic direction and in the key credits list. According to the academy’s regulations, at least some of the film’s personnel in music, cinematography, costume design and recording are required to be locals.

Although Lee is Taiwanese and so is co-scriptwriter, Wang Hui-Ling, the film’s cinematographer, Ridrigo Prieto, is Mexican and Oscar-nominated music composer, Alexandre Desplat (The Queen, The Painted Veil), is French.

As a result, Taiwan has dropped Lust, Caution as its entry for the Academy Awards, which celebrates its prestigious 80th year next year.

Based on the hype that surrounded the sexual aspects of Lee’s film, together with the film’s victory at the Venice Film Festival last month in the category of Best Picture, if Lust, Caution was eligible for the Oscars, chances of it getting at least a Best Foreign Language Film nomination would have been high.

 

If Lust, Caution won the Best Foreign Language Film award, it would mark Lee’s 2nd victory in the category after his 2001 win for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The kung fu hit was nominated for 10 Oscars and brought home a total of 4 statuettes, including ones for Best Original Score, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

This is not the 1st time the academy has applied such strict rules on the annual awards, which is regarded to be the film industry’s highest honour.

 

Lee’s gay romance film, Brokeback Mountain, for which he won the Best Director Oscar last year, was rejected in the Best Original Song category for its theme song, “A Love That Will Never Grow Old”. Academy voters claimed that the song was not prominently featured enough in the film to be eligible for the award. However, the song was eligible for the Golden Globe Awards, one of the precursor awards leading up to the Oscars, and won not just the Golden Globe, but also the Satellite Award and the Internet Movie Award for Best Original Song.

In 2002, jukebox musical film, Moulin Rouge, was rejected in both music categories – Best Original Score and Best Original Song – as the score for the film was not considered original enough and its theme song, “Come What May”, was said to have already been featured in director, Baz Luhrmann’s previous film, Romeo + Juliet (1996).

At this year’s Oscars, Clint Eastwood’s Japanese film, Letters From Iwo Jima, was rejected in the Best Foreign Language Film category as part of the film was in English.