The Industrial Turn

Abstract

This chapter aims to illustrate the soft-power appeal of Ang Lee’s cinema by tracing the industrial turns his career has taken at various stages. It will focus on Life of Pi because it is not merely a trans-Pacific co-production but a simultaneous turn toward Taiwan. The production of Life of Pi provides a case study of soft power efforts by Taiwanese local governments (in this case, Taichung) to promote their cities as filming locations in the hope of generating tourism. Bringing Lee’s career full circle to its originating point of Taiwan, Life of Pi demonstrates how Lee has transformed himself into a cultural broker between Hollywood and Taiwan as well as how cinema collaborates with other industries (in this case, city branding and location tourism) to spread Taiwan’s soft power domestically and globally. Moreover, the industrial turn occasioned by the making of Life of Pi was also a technological turn for Ang Lee as it was the first time he had engaged with 3D technology. While no Taiwanese landscape makes any appearance in the film, Life of Pi is testament to the ability of cinema and technology to create a make-believe world that eschews restrictive conceptions of authorship and (national) historiography whilst demonstrating the soft power of transnational storytelling—both Life of Pi’s and Lee’s life story—that can only be described as dream-like and utopian.