This Taiwanese drama provides a metaphor for life and politics on the island. Life at a military outpost is deadly dull. To entertain themselves the officers order enlisted men to shoot beer cans off their heads. Private Yisan, following those orders, accidentally kills a captain and takes off for the jungle. Bodo was produced in 1993 when Taiwanese people participated in street demonstrations throughout the country just after the withdrawal of martial law. Underground radio and TV stations sprang up like so many mushrooms, and with the introduction of Cable, Taiwan’s three television stations increased to 50-80. But the phenomenon of the time that most directly correlates to the film was this: The Taiwanese government proclaimed that China was no longer an enemy, resulting in confusion for the soldiers who had defended the island for 50 years. More and more young men started shirking their military service. In society in general, there was a shift in values away from the national and towards the individual--in other words, there was an upsurge in the desire for material gain. I wished to deal with the drastic chaos created by those changes. I also had to make money at that time as I had used up all of funding for producing my previous work, The Man from Island West. I desperately wanted to say something about the turbulent society through my film, though. Nothing could be said through Bodo unless it came out of my anxiety. (Huang Ming-chuan)