Up the Yangtze (Yung Chang, 2007): Canada

“Up the Yangtze” by Yung Chang

What a beautifully filmed movie! The first feature length documentary by Yung Chang, who is from Montreal, Canada, it shows a wonderful sense of storytelling! His first documentary film, Earth To Mouth, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, won praise for its beautifully crafted meditation on food production and migrant labor.

In the Three Gorges area of China where a massive – the largest ever built – dam is being constructed, the story unfolds of a poor peasant family living off the land which will soon be covered in water. We meet other families as the teenage daughter is sent to work on the tour boats traversing the waters as the dam is being built. Only 16, “Cindy” Shui Yu, who is already a child with low self esteem, is befriended by another displaced girl who works on the boat.

Contrasting between the tourist and the peasants, the story reveals the massive changes taking place in China at this time. Cindy’s family members and others like her, struggle to survive with little or no assistance from the powers that be. Benefits which are supposed to “trickle down” to the peasants somehow never reach the bottom.

The cinematography is captivating. The beauty of the landscape and romantic nature of the scenery captures the kinds of scenes we are familiar with in Chinese art through the ages. Contrasting with that is the theme of poverty and sadness of those who must leave their homes where they’ve lived for hundreds of years.

We got to know the characters – where and how they live – intimately. They seemed very comfortable around the camera. Concentrating as he does on the one family, we can sympathize with their plight and how they develop over time when Yung Chang returns to them 3 years later.

The music for me, left a little to be desired. I would have preferred to hear more Chinese traditional music than mostly classical in the background.

In the Vancouver International Film Festival last year, Up the Yangtze received the Best Canadian Documentary award. It was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year and the Joris Ivens award at the Amersterdam International Documentary Film Festival in 2007.

I highly recommend seeing this movie if you want to learn a little more about modern China.

submitted by Dorothy Littlejohn