Up The Yangtze - new Canadian Hot Doc

Up The Yangtze, a commentary on contemporary China from Canadian Director/Creator Yung Chang is a well conceived, beautifully shot “must see” documentary, toasted at Sundance and already currying what promises to be only the beginning in a long line of honours.

Originally titled Up Your Yangtze, the film really puts a face, several faces on the emerging New China. And what faces they are..a lovely young girl, Shui Yu, raised with Mother, Father and siblings at water's edge, in a lean-to of sorts, barely at the time we meet them, with food to eat. We follow her to her first job on the cruise ship, and how the family agonizes about sending her out to work, where she becomes Cindy (Americanized to suit the Tourists) and where we meet among others, Jerry, a male Counterpart.

Only a film maker who is living his story with an open mind and heart like Yung Chang, can bond with his subjects, and have them share for us, extraordinary moments of intimacy and personal truths.

Actors are very attune to being 'private in public' as Yung must also know from the Meisner classes he took in New York at The Neighbourhood PlayHouse. It is no surprise that this talented graduate of Film Production from Montreal's Concordia University, calls his movie “the Cassavettes version of what's going on”...in which he wanted “to capture the raw emotions” and he sure does.

Moving, illuminating, a real window and open door into a World that most North Americans can almost not fathom and must learn about. Even Chang, who grew up in Whitby, Ontario expected the China of his Grand Father, who's moving song at the beginning of the film guides us into the Four Gorges Dam scenario of the not only shifting sands of time but the floodgates that will immerse the homes of the riverside inhabitants and cause mass migration.

One expects next a Dramatic Feature from Chang as if Up The Yangtze is not dramatic enough. Chang: “The Cruise Ship became this kind of microcosm – above decks were the Western tourists and below decks were the crew workers looking above and trying to climb that ladder to join the tourists eventually”.

We follow the upward mobility of the young Chinese kids and their sometimes hilarious teachers who clue them in on their cruising customers, along for a last ride up the Yangtze: “ Don't say Canadians and Americans are the same” which brought a great cheer from the sold-out opening night screening at the Cumberland. “Never call them fat”...”say plump”.

Cindy buys her first new clothing, puts on make up, entertains a visit from her parents.. Cindy's Father like Lear's Wise Fool tears your heart out. Her Mother, intelligent and suffering because of what she comprehends about the changes. And watching Gerry scam the tourists has me thinking of what Yung Chang's feature could be: 'Jerry and Cindy get ----'!



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