Feature film debuts generally have a certain overdetermined quality, as if the filmmaker was simply bursting with ideas, jokes, characters and camera shots that she had been contemplating her entire life and could only now, finally, realize in an actual film. This makes debuts feel cluttered, rushed and, often, too cute by half. This is not to say that such films should be avoided; on the contrary, they usually offer distinctive cinematography, iconic images or settings and enjoyable characters and dialogue. But only for those willing to deal with their inherent profligacy.
Such is the case for The Great Buddha+, the first feature-length fictional film by writer-director Hsin-yao Huang (who, it should be noted, has previously directed a few documentary features). The trademark excesses are plain to see—puerile jokes that belong to teenagers or the ‘90s, metafictional addresses to camera and a self-aware narrator better left to TV shows such as “Jane the Virgin”—but so are the numerous worthwhile ideas that have had years to mature in Huang’s head. The Great Buddha+, at its best, is a scathing social critique of present-day Taiwan, with fully-developed characters, a reverence for screen history and a vivid way of rendering complex philosophical issues into visible forms.
The film tells the story of two friends, Pickle (Cres Chuang) and Belly Bottom (Bamboo Chen), who are scraping out a daily existence at the very bottom of Taiwan’s social ladder. Pickle is a night watchman at a bronze factory, where the workers are completing a specially-commissioned giant Buddha for a national prayer service. Belly Bottom, a scrap collector, visits him every night with expired food salvaged from a dumpster behind a market. Belly Bottom decides to spice up their nocturnal mealtimes by taking the memory card from the dashboard camera of Pickle’s boss, Kevin (Leon Dai). Kevin is rich, corrupt and, apparently, extraordinarily amorous, as the dashcam footage is replete with sexual encounters with numerous women. Inevitably, Pickle and Belly Bottom stumble upon something a bit more incriminating than Kevin’s libido in these nightly viewings, plunging themselves into a truly dangerous situation.
The Great Buddha+ recalls the early work of two very different ‘90s-debuting filmmakers. One of the more obvious comparisons is Kevin Smith, who made a cottage industry of churning out buddy dramas featuring two lovable losers with a penchant for finding trouble in unlikely places in films full of sexual sight gags (including moments that call into question those buddies’ sexual orientation), Skinemax-level innuendo and heavy religious themes and overtones. Huang seems all too happy to highlight his love of Smith, too, as The Great Buddha+ even features a character who delivers only a single line, much in the tradition of Silent Bob.
The other filmmaker that The Great Buddha+ summons to mind is Ming-Liang Tsai. In some ways, this is a lazy comparison, as both Huang and Tsai are Taiwanese, but it is also appropriate. Both filmmakers are quick to point out the wealth gap and corruption that exist in Taiwan, both are interested in the unique religiosity of Taiwan’s underclass and the latter’s Rebels of the Neon God also features two friends on the margins who get into real trouble. But Tsai’s film is not weighed down by too much reverence for the now-out-of-fashion immaturity of Smith’s ‘90s works and that is why it is in the Criterion Collection.
In spite of Huang’s fidelity to low-brow (non)humor—so many sex, sexuality and body composition jokes—The Great Buddha+ is at times quite profound. And not just with its portrayal of adult friendship and the uncanny sense that we never really know our friends, no matter how much time we spend together. No, Huang has much to say about thoroughly twenty first-century problems such as omnipresent surveillance and the nature of reality. He does this mostly through cinematography: the main story, of Pickle and Belly Bottom’s daily lives, is told in black and white, while the footage they view from the dashboard camera is in vibrant color. There’s something important in there about reality in a screen-obsessed (and obsessively screened) society.
In sum, The Great Buddha+ is quite clearly a debut feature film, as it is over-saturated with ideas, references and small moments that Huang has contemplated for years. But beneath its childish veneer of literal grab-assery is a good, fun film that portends that Hsin-yao Huang is a director worth keeping tabs on (though he will not be joining Tsai as a Criterion-worthy artist as long as he keeps making dick jokes).
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