Up the Yangtze ****

As the waters rise near the Three Gorges Dam, life upriver in China is changing. This arresting and beautifully photographed documentary examines the lives of some young people who go to work on a tourist cruise boat, mainly focusing on "Cindy," the daughter of a poor squatter whose hut and fields will soon be inundated.

The film is shot and narrated by Yung Chang, a Canadian whose grandfather immigrated from China, and who told his grandson many stories and songs from his homeland. Chang does not tell, he shows, in an unobtrusive way that must mean he was there for so long that his crew became part of the furniture. The family scenes in the hut, shot in available light, often just candlelight, depict a family struggling to adapt to the new China.

Because her family cannot afford the expense of high school for her, Cindy goes to work on the tourist boat, filled mostly with Americans. We see English lessons, the hierarchy of jobs on the boat, and the personalities of her co-workers. By the end of the movie it's clear that life on a small plot of land, growing vegetables for the table, will soon disappear, and that life now will be urban, commercial, and highly westernized.

A trainer on the boat relates a telling joke. It seems the presidents of the U.S. and of China were in a car. They come to a crossroads marked "Socialism" to the left and "Capitalism" to the right.

"Let's go to the right," says the U.S. president.

"OK," agrees the Chinese president, "but let's use the left-turn indicator."

Not rated. 93 minutes. Yung Chang - Director / Writer (writer), Mila Aung-Thwin - Producer, John Christou - Producer, Germaine Wong - Producer, Shi Qing Wang - Cinematographer, Olivier Alary - Composer, Hannele Halm - Editor.  Distributed in the U.S. by Zeitgeist Films.

Credited cast, as themselves: Jerry Bo Yu Chen, Campbell Ping He, Cindy Shui Yu.