太平天國 (1996)

Wissenswertes

Buddha Bless America is a 1996 Taiwanese feature film directed by Wu Nien-jen, a scriptwriter turned director. It is a sarcastic comedy set in the early 1960s about a Sino-American joint military exercise in a small village in southern Taiwan. The encounter between the villagers and the unfamiliar American soldiers in the film provides comic incidents of cultural clashes as well as critical reflection on American imperialism and cultural colonialism. This film was selected to be in competition for the Golden Lion award of the 53rd Venice International Film Festival.

Production

The title of the film, Buddha Bless America in English is not directly translated from its Chinese name, Taiping Tianguo. In Chinese history, Taiping Tianguo refers to an anti-imperialist rebellion, led by Hong Xiuquan in the Qing Dynasty.

The cabbage field in the film was not a real location but a set constructed by the crew and supporting army soldiers, which took three hours to complete. In total, a hundred thousands kilograms of cabbage were placed on the field.

Wu Nien-Jen also released a 2-CD album of the film entitled Buddha Bless America: Nien-jen Love (太平天國念真情) distributed by Rock Records (滾石唱片) in 1996, including his monologues about the shooting locations of the movies. In one of the soundtracks, he mentioned that some of the American soldiers were played by students who came from Hungarian.

The following information about the film’s production can be found in Wu Nien-jen’s book In Search of Buddha Bless America (1996):

The main shooting location of Buddha Bless America is Hengchun and Jiu Ru, Pingtung in southern Taiwan. Some of the scenes of the military base were filmed in the Chunrih Elementary School at Pingtung. The scenery shot of the sea was filmed at Jiupeng (九棚) to key the American navy on the movie.

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