Ding Ningyuan

The Poison Cat

In southwest China, the ancient legend of the Poison Cat circulates. Hunter Tai has been feeling increasingly uneasy lately as he inexplicably connects the eerie cries in the forest and the strange occurrences in the village with his wife’s unusual behaviour. The age-old way of life he knows seems to be crumbling, echoing the prophecy in the legend.

Sichuan Culinary Chronicles: In Four Chapters

The film continues to blend myths, legends, literature and folktales to further expand his narrative of history and weird tales. The story, set in Sichuan cuisine, is divided into four parts: a funeral banquet more than 4,000 years ago in which a grandmother cuts off her own tail to give to her children and grandchildren; a Spring Festival more than 3,000 years ago in which an ancestor king returns in the guise of a bird and is crucified at the banquet; a Mid-Autumn feast in the 1990s in which the gods gather to pay tribute to a millennia-old poet; and a birthday banquet in which a wandering child meets the gods of the underworld .