1 . Zhou Dongyu was born into an ordinary family in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province in early 1992. In 2010, Zhang Yimou chose Zhou from more than 8,000 actresses to star in Under the Hauthorn Tree, and she soon became known to the people of her hometown after winning Best Actress at the 56th Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain, the Outstanding New Actress Award at the 14th China Huabiao Awards and Best New Performer at the 20th Shanghai Film Critics Association Awards for her role in Under the Hauthorn Tree.

The luck of the young actress continued from there. In 2011, she was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy (BFA), China’s most respected film school.

In the three years there, Zhou received a number of film offers and starred in several, but the characters always seemed the same. “I’m always that innocent girl—the first-love type,” she once lamented. She felt the need to break out of the pigeonhole(禁锢). In 2013, Zhou auditioned(试演) for a small role in Breakup Buddies. “Actually, the director turned me down at first. But days later, he called me in for an audition. ‘I have to land this role’ was all I could think on the way to the audition. It was the perfect opportunity to change my image.” During her audition, Zhou was asked to do some name-calling. Two days later, she was told that she had been cast as a rural hairdresser, turning her previous lovable, innocent image upside down and resulting in the most memorable female character in the film.

After Breakup Buddies, Zhou began to receive a wider variety of offers, and she ended up playing an ill-tempered genius in The Ark of Mr. Chow and an agent in the TV drama Sparrow. “I still need to further improve my skills by playing different characters,” says Zhou. “By doing this, I get a deeper understanding of a wider variety of people I might not have otherwise ever known.”

With simulated splits in the air, a man     1     (dress) in black jumps high and shows different poses before     2     (graceful) landing on the ground. So eye-catching is his dance    3     it often attracts crowds that take pictures and ask what he is doing.

He is Chinese dancer-choreographer Ma Jiaolong, who     4     (make) and shared short videos of his dances in London since 2020. Ma has nearly 5 million followers on Douyin,     5    major short-video platform known as TikTok overseas.

After Ma’s videos circulated widely online, he received lots of messages from people around the world, many of     6     were impressed by his ability     7     (dance) his moves perfectly. “I was fascinated by the dancers who portray roles of ancient     8     (hero) through the movements of Chinese classical dance. I wanted to be like     9     (they), who could bring ancient characters alive.”, recalls Ma. His devotion to dancing did lead him to a new approach    10     creating dance.

4 . “It’s been a long time since I have played such a good character, and I’m deeply attracted by her complexity (复杂),” actress Gong Li told Beijing News. Gong spoke of her latest role as Yu Jin, a movie star and a spy, in the Saturday Fiction (《兰心大剧院》).

“Gong makes use of her timeless screen power to play the role of Yu,” Indie Wire commented. She has the ability to fill tiny moments with surprisingly deep feelings. For example, in a scene, Yu tells the other character to simply “take care”, nothing more. “But Gong’s posture, look and delivery raise this parting greeting to the level of a Greek tragedy,” the Hollywood Reporter noted.

It is such power that earns Gong the praise for being the character she plays in her acting career. In fact, it is a habit for her to spend two or three months preparing for her roles ahead of filming. “Every character is special for me. So I learn special techniques to play them or try to get used to their living environments,” Gong told China Daily. When shooting Saturday Fiction, Gong was trained to quickly load a gun in the darkness, repeating the process many times until the skill almost turned into a physical instinct. Although the gun-loading scene was cut from the final version of the film, Gong said the skill helped her to better understand her character.

Her pure love for films also makes her performance of characters convincing. Gong told CGTN that she tries to live a simple life to get rid of distractions. She hardly appears in reality shows, thus having more time for focusing on the character. “As an actor, sometimes it’s hard to stick to it because there are so many temptations (诱惑). Only true love can make you stick to it,” Gong said.

With a score of 2-0, China’s women’s table tennis team won against their competitors from the Netherlands during the class 6-8 final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics on Thursday.

Wang Rui, one of the three Chinese gold medalists, came from Chengdu in Southwest China and was     1     survivor of the Wenchuan earthquake. In 2008, Wang     2     (lose) her leg at the age of 15 in the earthquake. With the support from     3     (she) family, she joined the Chengdu table tennis team for the disabled in 2009. At a training center, Wang began to learn how     4     (play) table tennis. She worked hard and practised swinging the paddle for eight     5     (hour) every day. She fell in love with the sport and     6     (gradual) overcame the trauma (创伤) of losing her right leg.

Through her own efforts, Wang     7     (choose) for the Sichuan provincial table tennis team for the disabled, and then to the     8     (nation) team. The sport of table tennis gave her a second life as well     9     a chance to realize her Olympic champion dream. She was thankful to her parents,    10     gave her unconditional love and support.