Review of Up the Yangtze (2007) by Walter M — 19 May 2008

[font=Century Gothic]"Up the Yangtze" is a partially illuminating documentary about the Yangtze River as it is being flooded in the process of the building of the Three Gorges Dam with special attention focused on the people affected, especially one peasant family that is forced to relocate.

At the same time, their daughter goes to work for a luxury boat touring the river, giving tourists one last chance to view it as it is.(The boat sounds like something out of a Douglas Adams novel.) A little bit of footage of the boat goes a long way but too much time is spent there when much more time could have been spent with a wider variety of citizens.

And let's face it, tourists are kind of silly no matter where you go and should never be taken too seriously. It should come as no surprise that teenagers have crappy summer jobs in China, too. Some class issues do shine through however and the clash between socialist rhetoric and capitalist reality is kind of interesting.

(When the narrator mentions his grandfather not recognizing China anymore, does he mean physically or ideologically?) The movie's best moments come when it lets the images do the talking, especially one memorable bit of time lapse photography.

There should have been much more of that. [/font].