"It's really a great American love story," Lee says. "It just happens that the lovers are both men. To emphasize the characters' sexuality, rather than the powerful emotional connection they make, is to do an injustice to E. Annie Proulx's lovely, sad, tragic, poignant love story."

Over the next 20 years, they try desperately to keep their relationship a secret, even from the women they marry. Ennis refuses to fly in the face of convention and settle down with Jake on a ranch owned by Jake's parents.

Lee first discovered the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain in 2000 when he was riding a wave of popularity and critical acclaim for his martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Other directors had been circling the project for three years but kept shying away from its uncompromising treatment of a gay romance between two cowboys.

"I was in the final stages of committing to Brokeback Mountain when I was offered The Hulk," Lee says. "I felt The Hulk was something I couldn't pass on."

"It was one of the happiest days of my life when I learned Brokeback was available again," Lee says. "I would have been so jealous if someone else had made the movie.

Lee says Brokeback Mountain has more in common with his Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger than it does with his 1993 gay romance The Wedding Banquet.

"The Wedding Banquet is a family drama. It explores the family unit, which is the basic unit of Chinese society. Brokeback, Sense and Crouching Tiger are about repression of one's true feelings because of the obligations society imposes on individuals.

Lee feels both Jack and Ennis are gay but that "Jack is more knowing and less denying. He's also the all-American boy, who is dreamy, romantic and adventurous."

"I asked Heath to protect his space. To send out signals that he didn't want it to be invaded," Lee says. "This is what creates the tension in the beginning of the film."

"I was genuinely surprised by the audience response we received in Venice and in Toronto," Lee says. "I never thought people would react so overtly. People were crying."

"I don't expect everyone to embrace it," the director says. "The subject matter will still alienate certain people. I think that is tragic, but there are still people unwilling to accept the universality of love."

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