In the short film “God and Buddha Are Friends,” director Anthony Ma uses religious conflict as a metaphor for the broader immigrant experience of navigating between cultures. Ma grounds the film in comedy and a distinct ’90s-era San Gabriel Valley aesthetic, deftly navigating the nuances of religious colonization, protection, and why we fight over differing beliefs.
Co-written by Ma and Jonathan Hernandez and based on Ma’s childhood experience, the short follows young Taiwanese boy Andy (Ethan Wang) after he receives a jade dragon necklace from his Buddhist mother (Karin Anna Cheung). Meant to protect him, the necklace instead draws the ire of a white Christian pastor, who calls the necklace a “devil’s totem” and confiscates it. When Andy returns home, he’s terrified. His mother reacts with fury, and the next day, she rushes to the pastor’s home, where the two adults clash both ideologically and culturally.
I talked to Ma about religious trauma, conforming to whiteness, and coexistence between different belief systems.
Caught in a Spiritual Crossfire
While the main conflict in “God and Buddha Are Friends” seems to be young Andy being stuck between two religions, it’s also a larger metaphor about two cultural worlds at odds. For instance, his mother’s protective stance over Andy’s connection to Buddhism mirrors many immigrant parents’ desire to maintain cultural ties to their country of origin.
Andy believes what all the adults in his life tell him about the world, and because he’s a child, he wants to please them. Not only does he want to honor his mother, he wants to fit in and please the pastor. He wants to eat pizza and hang out with a family friend who knows all the words and dance moves to a Vacation Bible School song.
While this could be interpreted as assimilation and rejecting heritage, it’s evident that Andy is just a kid trying to fit two world views together…
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