Cows represent traditional values such as honesty and perseverance, Guan says, while the marauding Japanese soldiers and desperate refugees trying to milk or murder the animal stand for the aggression and selfishness of society today.

Guan's film begins with Niu (Chinese for cow) scuttling around his village, only to find everyone has been slaughtered by the Japanese invaders. The only survivor is the cow the village elders had assigned to his care. From there the film flits between Niu's flashbacks of better times - when he revels in his mentorship of the animal and his budding relationship with a young widow, Jiu (played by Yan Ni) - and his efforts to fend off gun-toting intruders and violent, hungry mobs.

Guan says he kept the film 'as far away from politics as possible'.

'Nationalism, the justness of wars - these are things we want to push to the back of the story,' he says, when asked about the film's brief depiction of the Red Army soldiers as the embodiment of intellect and compassion compared to the villagers' primitiveness.

'After all, whatever political beliefs you have, wars are always about people killing people,' he says. 'What I want to do is to say something about the world through two of the simplest souls on earth.'

The 41-year-old directors admits he couldn't have made the movie when he first graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1991. 'I was quite self-satisfied back then,' Guan says with a laugh. 'And I was filled with this oomph - I think I wouldn't have been able to think of a piece that comes with such depth or benevolence.'

Indeed, Cow looks drastically different from Guan's 1994 debut, Dirt (Tou Fa Luan Le), a gloomy, subversive youth drama revolving around disillusioned underground rockers in Beijing. Released at about the same time as Zhang Yuan's Beijing Bastards, which revolves around similar characters and was swiftly banned by the authorities, Dirt saw Guan name-checked as part of the mainland's so-called Sixth Generation Directors, a group of filmmakers whose work touched on the widespread discontent bubbling in young people in the politically stifling 1990s.

Unlike his peers, however, Guan embarked on a more reconciliatory path with the authorities. While Zhang, Wang Xiaoshuai and Lou Ye made and released films away from the official system in the 90s, Guan brought Dirt to the state studios, courted their endorsements, and received official sanctions for the film to be shown in mainland cinemas and then international festivals. Compared to his peers, Guan had fewer problems in pursuing his career, with films such as Romantic Crossing (1996) and Eyes of a Beauty (2002).

'I don't think films carry that much of a meaning if they are to remain underground, with the masses unable to see it,' Guan says. 'I don't see the point of independent cinema being confrontation with the established system. The way forward is to get inside the system and have the films distributed normally. Maybe one day we will get to see cinema circuits dedicated to independent films - that would be a healthier development for everyone.'

Guan says he has changed a lot since his heady days as a young filmmaker. 'I succumb to compromises more easily,' he sighs. His career as a teledrama director is 'probably' a sign of it, with long-running hit serials such as Black Hole (2001) and Yi Meng (2008), the series that led him to the tale that inspired Cow.

'Before I worked in television, I had to spend my time taking my screenplays to people and pleading with them to give me money. I ran into so many walls and was so broken that I said to myself that I wouldn't do that again,' he says.

'So after I made money with my serials, a lot of people would come [to me] and [I] don't have to beg for help any more. The series provided me with a platform ... and the television work was just a means to my filmmaking ends.'

With Cow attaining wide international exposure through its screenings at the Venice Film Festival's Orrizonti sidebar competition, Guan is confident his filmmaking career is back on track after his TV career.

His next production is slated to begin early next year, a film which will again feature Huang; they first worked together years before the actor hit the big time with Ning Hao's Crazy Stone.

'[Huang's] a big star now, while I'm a newcomer - an old newcomer,' says Guan, laughing. 'His success was actually proof that the mainland film scene is maturing, that audiences are becoming more receptive to different things.'

He pauses. 'You can only wait, I suppose. Maybe a surprise is in store around the corner - who knows what things will be like in a year's time?'

Cow will be screened on Tue, 9.50pm, and Fri, 7.50pm, at Broadway Cinematheque