2 January 2008

Award-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee has proved that he can turn his hand successfully to almost any genre, having established his reputation on home ground with Hsi yen (The Wedding Banquet, 1993) and the sumptuous Yin shi nan nu (Eat Drink Man Woman, 1994), he went on to direct a respected Jane Austen adaptation (Sense and Sensibility, 1995), an intelligent American civil war drama (Ride With the Devil, 1999), a wuxia masterpiece (Wo hu cang long / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000), a comic-book actioner (Hulk, 2003) and the gay western (Brokeback Mountain, 2005). Nestled in the midst of these is one of his best films, the 1997 The Ice Storm. I'll hand over to the press release for an outline of the film:

Suburban Connecticut, 1973. While the Watergate hearings blast from the TV, the wayward Hood and Carver families try to navigate a Thanksgiving break simmering with unspoken resentments, sexual experimentation, and cultural confusion. With crystalline clarity, characteristic subtlety, and even a dose of wicked humor, Academy Award–winning director Ang Lee adapts Rick Moody's acclaimed novel of American malaise into a trenchant, tragic portrait of lost souls. Featuring a cast of tremendously talented adults (Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver) and kids (up-and-coming stars Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood), The Ice Storm is one of the finest films of the nineties.

Criterion have announced a US DVD release of The Ice Storm for March 2008 with the following features:

• New, restored high-definition anamorphic 1.85:1 digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Ang Lee and director of photography Frederick Elmes;
• Audio commentary featuring Lee and producer-screenwriter James Schamus;
• New documentary featuring interviews with actors Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Christina Ricci, and Elijah Wood;
• New video interview with novelist Rick Moody;
• Deleted scenes;
• Footage from an event honoring Lee and Schamus at New York's Museum of the Moving Image;
• Production designs and sketches, with commentary by the designers;
• Theatrical trailer;
• A new essay by film critic Bill Krohn.

The Ice Storm will be released by Criterion on 18th March 2008 at the SRP of $39.95.