Academy Award Winners for Best Cinematography: 2001 — Peter Pau, HKSC 臥虎藏龍 / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Directed by Ang Lee Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
"We make a lot of period action films in Hong Kong, and we generally use hard light and a full range of colors. We control them very carefully, often using extreme blacks and pure whites and mixing deep reds and blues with lots of fog and smoke effects. But that dynamic approach did not work for Crouching Tiger, because the storytelling approach was very dramatic; using those techniques would have overdramatized the film and taken the audience out of the story and away from the characters. Instead, we wanted a look that was realistic and comfortable, so the first thing I discussed with Ang was using a low-contrast visual approach with desaturated colors."— Peter Pau for The American Society of Cinematographers, January 2001