Up the Yangtze

3 stars out of 5

This is a documentary so good it makes you wonder if it is really a documentary. I mean, how can they find people as perfect as "Cindy" and "Jerry," and how did they get some of the footage? No spoilers here, but there is at least one scene that is amazingly out of left field, and makes you wonder how the filmmaker was allowed to be in the room, or allowed to use the footage. Three cheers for Yu Shui as the reluctant Cindy, Chen Bo Yu as Jerry, and Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang, for preserving the look and feel of the banks of the Yangtze river before it disappears behind the Three Gorges Dam. A masterpiece of long-form documentary work. See it if you care either about good documentary work, or the Chinese countryside.