Guan Tian is a Chinese writer and director based in Beijing. He earned his MFA degrees from Syracuse University and the California Institute of the Arts. His short films, such as “Drama” (2014), “The Story of Bin” (2019) or “The Arrival of Aliens” (2021) have been screened at many international festivals across the world and have received many awards: “Best Live Action Short Film” at the 30th Warsaw Film Festival, “Best Short Fiction” at the 2015 LA Film Fest, “Louis le Prince International Film Awards” at Leeds International Film Festival, etc. “Drama” was also collected by John Hopkins University MICA Film Center. His short films often explore the power shift between individuals and social groups.
His latest short is “The Poison Cat”, which was presented at the 2024 Venice Film Festival in the Orrizonti selection. The 17-minute film draws its inspiration from the real-life Chinese legend of the poison cat, according to which women would transform at night into monsters and eat men. Set in a village in south-west China, “The Poison Cat” reappropriates the legend and turns it on its head to satirize patriarchy and the traditional demonization of women. Through the veil of fantasy and satire it deals with shifting gender norms and the rising tide of female empowerment.
As Guan Tian was in Venice to show “The Poison Cat” and meet potential investors for a feature film version of the short, we took the opportunity to sit down on the Lido and talk about his short and his project to make it into a full-length movie.
The following interview has been edited and redacted for clarity.
How exactly did you come up with such a story?
This is an ancient legend from the Southwest of China. The women, such as wives, who are very submissive during the day, are said to transform at night into an evil spirit called the poison cat. They gather together in the woods and eat people, especially their husbands. It’s traditional folklore where you can see how women are demonized, but it is the kind of story which is told by men, and you can really see men’s fears through such legends. I could see the connection with what is going on today in China in terms of women’s empowerment and men’s fear of losing power and control over their wives. So, it seemed to me there was a strong connection between that ancient legend and China today.
There is a lot of potential with a story like that!
Yes, and actually from the very beginning we wanted to develop it into a feature film. We went to various film markets to promote our project, like Cinemart, Focus Asia or Hong Kong HAF (the Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum). And there it emerged it would be a good idea to make a short film based on the same idea as a proof of concept, to show investors what the feature film would look like. But actually the short film is very different from the feature version, because the film will be based on the perspective of a woman instead of a man, so it will be more like a psychological thriller, with more genre elements. Whereas the short is closer to fantasy.
What about the representation of nature in the short, especially the forest where women escape at night. Is there some kind of metaphor going on in terms of a link between women and nature?
These legends often include the typical Asian forest environment, and in the short there is a strong contrast between the forest and the village. The village is a society where women have to behave normally and obey the patriarchal system, whereas the forest is a wild world, so I see it as a metaphor for their inner world, where they can express the inner emotions that they can’t display during the daytime.
In many stories like this, the entities in the forest can be monsters, and it would have been easy for your short to be a horror story, but that is not the case at all.
It’s all about the storytelling. At the beginning, we tell the story through the perspectives of the men, so just like them we feel that there could be some monster in the woods. But later on there is a switch in perspective, suddenly we adopt the women’s point of view and we come to realize that it is not the case at all. You as the audience get to change your opinion about the so-called monster. To me this is more like a wild party of the women, not at all a monster story.
Would you describe your short as a feminist story?
Yes, of course. I am a feminist myself.
There is something very humanistic about your story as well, denouncing the dehumanization of women.
Yes. Actually at first, when I was developing the story, I was going more into a horror direction, and then later I felt it was not the right way. I felt it wasn’t the right tone, so I changed it to what you can see in the short. The climax scene, when you see the actual faces of those supposedly monster women, you realize this is meant as a black humor satire of those men.
Your other shorts belong to different genres. “The Poison Cat” is more fantasy, “The Arrival of Aliens” is science fiction, while “The Story of Bin” is more realistic. Why do you use so many different genres?
I guess it has to do with my personality. I have made five short films so far and each one is very different is terms of genre and style. Personally, I like to explore different ways of storytelling.
Speaking of “The Story of Bin”, I was struck by the similarity between that story and “The Poison Cat”. In both shorts we have a group of boys – or manboys – hanging out and being very violent and toxic, in both cases being very immature. Is that a theme that is important to you?
This is an interesting comparison. There is a scene in “The Poison Cat” when the man points his rifle at his wife. That is a very dangerous and potentially violent moment, but he takes it as a joke, he giggles while doing it. It’s a horrible and cruel joke, but he doesn’t feel that way. Men can be like that, it’s part of their nature.
In both stories, I got the feeling of alienated male characters, with nothing much to do in their lives and who also behave that way because they can’t really communicate with each other, or with their wives.
Yes, in both stories these men are in a very uneasy state of mind, there is a fear inside of them, although for different reasons.
There are striking scenes in both shorts when they guys hang out and goof around, they fart and joke about their penises…
(laughs) Yes it’s true! You remind me of those scenes, they’re very similar, the men-get-together scenes.
That’s also why I also look forward to the film version, I’m curious to see what the women’s perspective will look like.
Yes, because it will be told from their perspective, there will be a real thriller/horror element in the film. But we will follow the female character as she turns into a so-called monster, we will feel with her during the whole emotional journey so we can avoid the demonization.
I had a feeling that these men were just going through the motions, repeating thoughtlessly what they had been told by their fathers about how you treat your wife and how you communicate with her, and what their fathers themselves had been taught by their own fathers etc.
Yes, society is changing, the world they used to believe in, the patriarchal system, is changing, is collapsing, and that is something they do not understand. The women are just looking for fairness, for equality, but the men are afraid because this is something they never met before, and which their fathers and grandfathers never met before either. They mention the tractor at one point in the short, and the fact is, only men can drive it and go to the outside world. So, economically speaking, this tool is power, and it is in the hands of men. And at the end, the women get on it and leave the village. They don’t want to grab the men’s guns, they just want to be able to see the outside world.
So are they coming back? I was wondering at the end, will the women come back?
It would be their own choice. It is meant as an open ending.
It is tempting to see the rifle as a sexual metaphor in the short. The men joke about the character not being able to have sex with his wife, and later we see him point it at his wife…
A gun is a typical sexual symbol, because sex is always related to power in a patriarchal system, so I would say yes, it can be interpreted that way.
Do you think this kind of story works better in a village environment, or could it also work in a big city environment?
It’s not only about the village certainly. This is like a fable and is about something happening throughout society, not only rural areas. The film will not point at a specific area of China or a specific group of people, because it is meant to be a fable that applies to everyone. The short film mixes different cultural elements and ethnic groups for that reason.
Watching the short, I was reminded of the story of witches in 17th century Massachusetts. How the Massachusetts Bay Colony was going through huge economic and political difficulties and how these tensions, according to many historians, may have led the population to use women as scapegoats and accuse them of being witches and of being responsible for the trouble.
Actually I read a scientific paper about the poison cat legend, and they draw a deep comparison with Massachusetts and the burning of witches. There are a lot of similarities, and the very title of the paper has the word scapegoat in it I think. This connection is not so central to the short, but the feature film will definitely have many more similarities with that situation.
Will you be relying on crowdfunding to fund the film, like you did for the short?
No, we need too much money for that! I am glad to be in Venice because we already are in touch with European co-producers, so this is a great opportunity to catch up with them. The feature will be an international co-production, so it’s important for us to be here today.
