Author(s)

Yifei Yang

Corresponding Author

Yifei Yang

Abstract

Sibling relationships are usually overshadowed by the exploration of Oedipal relationships and are less often studied, but sisterhood demands attention as a way of exploring modes of female intimacy other than the mother-daughter relationship. While the narrower sense of sisterhood refers only to sisters who are related by blood, the broader sense of sisterhood represents socialised, intimate female relationships. This paper focuses on the portrayal of the narrower sense of sisterhood in the 1995 Chinese film Rice, exploring the role of twin structures in the gaze of the central female cinematic figure. I argue that Rice successfully portrays a complex, antagonistic and balanced sibling relationship within the social norms of patriarchal order and that the narrative of sisterhood in an Eastern context can enrich multicultural global feminist content and provide a reference to female relationships from different perspectives.

Keywords

Rice, Sisterhood, Feminism, Desire, Psychoanalysis