Toronto - So when you are on an airplane, you get these kickass personal entertainment units sometimes, and they have all sorts of movies on them. Flying back from Hong Kong, I was fortunate enough to have seats with these units in them. Looking thru, I saw all kinds of movies that I could watch, but one of them caught my eye - Yung Chang’s - Up The Yangtze

Up the Yangtze is a Canadian documentary about the lives of people living along the Yangtze river in China, and how the building of the Three Gorges Dam and westernization has affected their lives. I was interested in this movie for several reasons, but mainly cos I’m Chinese, and things that are Chinese are of high interest to me. I am also Canadian, so this was a Canadian movie about Chinese river, how can I not want to watch it?

The documentary primarily follows two workers on a Yangtze River cruise - Shui Yu, the poor farmers daughter thrusted into the work force in order to make money so her parents can survive and Bo Yu Chen, an arrogant teenager looking to make some good coin by playing to the foreigners. I am guessing the filmmaker follows these two drastically different people to contrast China’s old (Shui Yu) with China’s new (Bo Yu Chen).

As the film progresses, it highlights the large amount of changes made necessary by the dams (the dam will cause the river to increase in depth and flood a lot of areas) as well as how China is changing its ways from the old, to cater to westerners. Corruption, Pollution, the difference between rich and poor, old and new, are also other reoccurring themes highlighted thru out the documentary.

The movie features some good cinematography and is quite an eye opener I would say, for people. It will give you some insight as to how Chinaman are now idolizing western concepts and ideas, and the conflicts it presents. I quite enjoyed the film, and the two main people that are followed are intriguing.

4/5