A Bride Married to Amazement
Sad news arrived recently. Katie Chingyeh Lee took leave of this world far too early on June 2.
For many of us in Taiwan’s international film scene, Katie
stands forever tied in memory to our first professional experiences in cinema.
She cast us in, and advised us through, projects like Ang Lee’s Life of Pi and
Martin Scorsese’s Silence. She worked with arts educators to arrange experiences
that would help all interested to bring new creations into being.
The thoughts of many in Taiwan are with the family now.
Farewell to a fun, serene, inquisitive, and inspirational presence. We will miss you.
________
A reminiscence shared by her sister on behalf of the family:
Katie (1980.03.09–2025.06.02) was not easy to define: a daughter, sister, cousin, friend, and artist whose life defied conventions and left an unforgettable mark on everyone she met.
She was the most fascinating person many of us have ever known.
She was full of energy, curiosity, and a kind of fearless spontaneity that made her unforgettable. She could walk into a room full of strangers and, ten minutes later, walk out with five new friends and three dinner invitations. And all of these people would eventually become friends because of her. She brought people together.
But it wasn’t just charm; it was her warmth. Katie genuinely cared about people. She was the one who would check in when no one else did, who kept calling even after being rejected, who remembered the small things.
She told stories like nobody else. Many of us experienced how she could make an ordinary moment feel cinematic. She once did, or perhaps many times that we didn’t know, stand-up comedy at an open mic, completely on impulse. And she pulled it off. That was Katie: bold, funny, quick-witted, and utterly fearless.
Her creativity wasn’t just an artistic talent; it was the way she lived. She started in mathematics, moved to English literature, and ended up in filmmaking. Because when she felt pulled toward something, she didn’t hesitate.
She wrote and shot her own short films. She saw the world with rare sensitivity and even rarer clarity. She often thought ten steps ahead, and sometimes felt frustrated when people couldn’t follow where she was going. But that never stopped her. She cared anyway.
Katie was an artist. A writer. A warrior.
She was brave. It was as if she had no fear.
She wanted to visit New York at a young age; she saved up and went. She wanted to master languages and she did: English, French, and later, Italian. She wanted to live freely, and she did that, too.
Even when she was sick, she moved to a new country and
started again. No hesitation. No fear.
That’s what many of us admired most about her: she didn’t let anything stop her from doing what she wanted. She was free. And she always has been.
Katie cast extras for Life of Pi and Silence, not just because she was talented, but because she had a rare gift for seeing people. She saw into people. She noticed things others didn’t. She wanted the best for them, sometimes more than they could want for themselves.
She had an incredible ability to move between cultures and languages with total fluency. Raised and educated entirely in Taiwan, her English was good enough to teach. She fell in love with French. Then, Italian. And now, Italy had become her home, and its people, her people.
For those who knew her earlier in life, Katie was the eldest sister and the cousin we all looked up to. She was the one who led us through the neighbourhood, who made us perform at family gatherings, who paved the way. We watched her to figure out how to be brave, how to be expressive, how to be more ourselves.
She was the kind of person who, if told ‘God closed the
door,’ would say, ‘Then open it again. That’s what doors do.’ And she lived
like that.
She lived the life she wanted, until she couldn’t anymore.
And still, she kept her sense of wonder.
In the words of Mary Oliver, she was ‘a bride married to amazement.’
We will miss her laugh. We will miss her fire. But we will keep her stories. And we will carry the way she made us feel, seen, challenged, inspired, and loved.
Final Note · 後記
We would also like to share that this will be the final post
we make on Katie’s behalf. Katie was a storyteller, and her social media are
part of the narrative she left behind. In honouring her spirit and voice, we
have chosen not to manage or update her accounts further. They will remain as
she left them—unchanged and untouched. Any future messages or comments left
there will be between Katie and those who write them.
Katie Lee Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/lee.katie39
Katie Lee on video (Tobie Openshaw)
https://vimeo.com/90197306
Comments
The hand we see is Katie’s. She was recruited for the shot in a bit of on-set improvisation. When her father saw it later he said, ‘Is that Katie’s hand?’