Ang Lee's old pictures from his jobless years exposed

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Ang Lee's old pictures from his jobless years exposed

Ang and Ann in 1982 as they collaborated on a documentary.

With the big hair and the tight shorts, he looks like any other young man of the '80s—or perhaps one of today's indie-hipster-arty-creative types.

But the man in the picture, then only 28-years-old when the photographs were taken, would eventually become two-time Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe-winning director Ang Lee.

Last week the world got a look at the Taiwanese moviemaker's early years as a director, thanks to Ann Yen, an American-Chinese artist and movie producer who was one of Ang's first collaborators and who posted the 30 year old photographs on Weibo.

The pictures shot in 1982 went viral immediately, fuelled by Ang's recent awards run for Life Of Pi. His previous award-winning movies include Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sense And Sensibility.

Ang and his 1982 documentary crew.

Some of Ang's Asian fans have noted his resemblance to the late Leslie Cheung—a boyish handsomeness that perhaps explains why Ang's wife, molecular biologist Jane Lin, accepted her role as the family breadwinner while he struggled to establish his career.

After he graduated from the Tisch School Of The Arts at New York University, there was a period when Ang was unemployed, leaving Jane to support their family of four as he worked towards his big break.

Ang eventually made it in 1992 when Pushing Hands, about the clash between two generations of a Chinese family, became a hit in Taiwan. Two more "sequels"—The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman—that formed his "Father Knows Best" trilogy earned him Hollywood recognition and his first international awards.

He finally became a major force with his 1995 adaptation of the Jane Austen classic Sense And Sensibility and the critically acclaimed drama The Ice Storm.