反映
はんえい · hanei · JLPT N2 · noun
contemplation
🪞 反 (turn back) + 映 (shine, reflect): light turned back, like a mirror does
The same back-and-shine sense extends to influence: an effect that flows back onto something else. 映 also appears in 映画 (movie), where light is projected onto a screen.
反 — hand 又 under cliff 厂
Originally a pictograph of a hand (又) turning something over against a cliff or slope (厂), depicting the action of flipping or reversing. From this came the core meaning 'to turn over,' which extended to 'opposite,' 'contrary,' and 'rebel against.' The character is purely semantic, with no phonetic component.
映 — sun 日 + center 央 (phonetic)
映 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The sun radical 日 gives the meaning—light, shining, reflection—while 央 (yāng) supplies the sound, shifted to yìng. It originally described sunlight shining on something, and now broadly means 'reflect,' 'shine upon,' or 'project' (as in films).