ZHE LI
Project Title: The Cow
Genre: Narrative
Length：17 mins
Language available: Mandarin
Status: Finished
Logline ：
A man is followed home by a cow every day, it is starting to cause him trouble
so he has no choice but to begin on a journey of searching.
so he has no choice but to begin on a journey of searching.
The Cow explores the tension between reality and absurdity, set in a rural village where a mysterious,
sick cow disrupts the protagonist’s life. The cow symbolizes the burdens we can’t control, representing
the unpredictability of life. I aimed to blend a simple, everyday setting with surreal elements, using the
cow to highlight how absurdity often emerges in the most mundane moments.
The writing process focused on how external pressures, no matter how irrational, affect our emotions
and decisions. The protagonist’s struggle with the cow mirrors how we confront unexpected challenges,
sometimes without fully understanding their impact. Through this surreal story, I wanted to reflect on how
life's absurdities reveal our vulnerabilities.
Parts of Script
Inspiration:
The inspiration for The Cow stems from my desire to explore the absurdity and unpredictability of life.
The idea of a cow—a seemingly ordinary animal—persistently following the protagonist became a
metaphor for the unexpected burdens we carry and the situations that cling to us despite our attempts
to move on.
In rural settings, animals often play a crucial role in people's lives, but in this story, the cow represents
more than that—it symbolizes the uncontrollable forces that we all face. I was particularly inspired by
the notion of how something as simple as an animal can disrupt someone’s life in unexpected ways,
reflecting the chaos and randomness that often shapes our existence.
My personal experiences with rural life and the interactions between humans and animals also informed
this story. There’s an underlying tension between tradition and modernity, as seen in the clash between
a rural lifestyle and the technological advancements of our time. This tension is at the heart of The Cow,
where the protagonist’s journey mirrors the struggle many of us face when trying to reconcile the past
with the present.