Chinese Cinema at the Millennium
Chinese-language cinema has been undergoing dramatic changes since 2000. Many of these changes parallel economic, political, social, and other cultural developments that have radically transformed the Chinese-speaking world. As Chinese cinema develops out of this diverse population, transnational exchanges, diasporic alliances, and immigrant connections complicate any picture of a “national” or unitary Chinese cinema (Zhang, 2004). However, culture, language, ethnicity, and history link Chinese communities together, and the dynamics of a marketplace in which Chinese-language films circulate make the study of Chinese cinema a fecund research topic. From popular commercial features to esoteric exercises in film art for cultured elites, Chinese cinema continues to make a mark on world film screens. In addition to looking at the current scholarship on contemporary Chinese-language cinema, this essay explores the key themes, issues, and concerns found on Chinese screens at the millennium. 
 
 
Keywords: 
 
Chinese cinema; 
nationalism; 
transnationalism; 
ethnicity; 
globalization; 
Chinese diaspora; 
film aesthetics
Gender Politics and Neoliberalism in China: Ann Hui's The Postmodern Life of My Aunt
The Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui's The Postmodern Life of My Aunt [2006] mirrors the neoliberal conditions of contemporary China, which have had a devastating impact on women in the People's Republic. The film vertiginously crosses genres, and the narrative moves from light comedy to melodrama as its style vacillates between Pop Art excess and social realism. This essay looks at what makes The Postmodern Life of My Aunt “postmodern” within the context of post-Mao, post-Deng China. It also considers how transnational Chinese cinema opens a space for criticism from female filmmakers with a particular vision of Chinese women within global film culture.
Hill country sheep production. I. The influence of age, flock, and year on some components of reproduction rate in Romney and Border Leicester × Romney ewes.
Data from 7,091 straightbred Romney and Border Leicester × Romney ewes grazed at the Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station over the period 1959 to 1967 have been used to obtain estimates of flock and age-of-ewe effects on reproduction rate and its components and of year-to-year variation. The ewes were from six groups: a Romney control (RCR) flock, a Romney flock in which ewes were mated either to Romney (RER) or to Border Leicester rams (REB), and flocks of first-cross (F1), second-cross (F2), and third-cross (F3) Border Leicester × Romney ewes mated to first-cross Border Leicester × Romney rams. The ewes' ages at lambing varied from 2 to 5 years and no selection was practised. The ratio of number of lambs weaned per ewe present at lambing increased from the RCR (0.84) to the F1 (1.07), then declined with interbreeding to the F2 (0.92) and further to the F3 (0.87) ewes. Similar changes were evident for the percentage of ewes lambing, of multiple births, and of lambs surviving to weaning. Over...