Patricide Allegory in Palace Intrigues—A Critique of Shadow From the Cultural and Gendered Perspective

This paper examines the filming practice of Zhang Yimou’s Shadow(2018)in the context of Chinese culture and from the perspectives of contemporary gender theories.It argues that Shadow constructs a male-dominated patriarchal culture and a patricide allegory of the Father and Son structure of power in palace intrigues.Furthermore,it is a history of the acts that the Son takes to get the Father’s woman,absolve the tyrannical Father’s threat of castration and attain the supreme power.To suit the motif of palace intrigues,Zhang adopts quasi-back-and-white palette to create stunning visuals like traditional Chinese ink paintings.He also constructs a web-narrative of dualities around the yin-yang paradigm,the taichi diagram in particular.The film’s central gender relationship is a triangular one,in which Woman is positioned between the Father/the master and the Son/his“shadow”.Woman is marginalized in the film.She is not represented as the central subject,but as the object of sacrifice who functions to satisfy male desire and construct male subjectivity and sexuality.Moreover,the film explores how toxic and violent Chinese masculinity can become when it deviates from wen-wu prowess.Thus,Shadow becomes a violent movie that intensifies the viewer’s experience of violence as the Son/the“shadow”must be absolutely brutal and ruthless in order to slay the Father/the master and create new order.

Murder Trial Intrigue

THE courtroom inside the Intermediate People＇s Court in Hefei, east Chinas Anhui Province, was packed to capacity with more than 140 people on August 9, as a closely watched murder trial began on a case that has gathered international attention because of its links to one of Chinas top ranked and most charismatic Communist Party of China （CPC） leaders.

Ancient Two-Legged Lizard Intrigues Scientists

使阑人静。在网上读到此文,我的思绪似乎回到遥远的旷古年代。恐龙是当时地球的主宰。在地球动物的进化史上,从爬行到站立行走奔跑的动物并不多,恐龙就是一例。令科学家兴奋不已的是,在恐龙之前,已有先例,那就 是最近考古发现的蜥蜴Eudibamus cursoris,这种食草蜥蜴能够收缩起前肢,利用后肢狂奔,以逃避食肉动物的袭击。据此本文的末尾有如此推断: Perhaps their two-legged escape machinery made them especially successful herbivores(食草动物),they said. 读者朋友,你也许为本句中的一个常用词machinery而犯愁,那么,请看本文为此所加的注释吧。】

Price of Shifting the Hubble Constant

One of the hottest and most intriguing recent topics in cosmology has been the tension[1]between the cosmic expansion rate as measured using the local Universe as compared with that determined from the Cosmic Microwave Background(CMB).This tension has been steadily growing for the past 3 years,and is perhaps the strongest evidence of a failure of the standardΛCDM cosmological model.

Intriguing Origins of Protein Lysine Methylation:Influencing Cell Function Through Dynamic Methylation

Introduction“There is a kink(shoulder)on[the]Lys peak...”These words scribed in Richard P.Ambler’s laboratory notebook marked the discovery of protein methylation and a segue into a new field of scientific research[1].Initially,through ion-exchange chromatography and two-dimensional paper chromatography of the hydrolysate of Salmonella typhimurium flagellin,this“kink”was interpreted as a“new amino acid”,the e-Nmethyl-lysine(NML).This discovery,bolstered by a subsequent examination of purified NML,was the first glimpse of protein methylation in living cells[1].

Metal-organic frameworks built by flexible organic ligands

Metal-organic frameworks(MOFs)are emerging as an important family of porous materials for their intriguing network topologies and potential applications in gas adsorption and separation,catalysis,proton conduction,etc.Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China,Prof.Cao Rong and his colleagues from Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter,Chinese Academy of Sciences,

Observation of enhanced monopole strength and clusteringin ^(12)Be

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China,Prof.Ye Yanlin and his team from Peking University reported their recent research results in an article"Observation of enhanced monopole strength and clustering in 12Be"in Physical Review Letters(2014,112:162501).

One-component intramolecular thiol-yne approach to peptide stapling

With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China,the research team led by Prof.Li Zigang(李子刚)at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School developed a new methodology for unprotected peptide stapling v iaphoto-induced intramolecular thiol-yne hydrothiolation,which was

Angucyclines as signals modulate the behaviors of Streptomyces coelicolor

With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China,Prof.Yang Keqian’s laboratory at the Institute of Microbiology,Chinese Academy of Sciences,reported that angucyclines as signals modulate the behaviors of Streptomyces coelicolor,which

Crystal growth of a noble metal on less-stable metal nanostructures for intriguing properties and applications

With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China,the research team led by Prof.Gao ChuanBo(高传博)at the Frontier Institute of Science and Technology,Xi’an Jiaotong University,cooperated with the research team led by Prof.Yin Yadong at the University of California,Riverside,and reported their recent progress in the structure engineering of noble metal nanocrystals for intriguing prop-

PAINTING THE PARADOX

Empty bags contain their own kind of weight, is this how they weigh us down? He Xun(贺勋) plays with expectations and contradictions as he uses the peculiarities of language to paint poetry on his intriguing works of art.

THE WORLD ON RICE PAPER

Using simplistic elements and the space of the gallery,Wang Yizhou brings traditional Chinese paintings into the realm of modern installation art with rice paper on the ceiling and rocks on the floor

THE DEAD END

As the name suggests, Cao Baoping's latest film The Dead End doesn't deliver you to a wholesome, feel-good destination. An intriguing murder mystery, albeit with messy additions, provides more than a few gems and shrieks in an unusually brutal narrative.

长生不老的希望

一种极小的线虫可能蕴藏着长生不老药的秘密,科学家发现他们能将其寿命延长,而延长的程度相当于人类活到500岁。通过对这种线虫的基因和激素的处理,科学家能使这种生物寿命延长至140天,约为其平常寿命的6倍。