Watch Up The Yangtze

The movie Up the Yangtze, released in 2007, is a compelling and thought-provoking documentary that explores China's staggering economic growth through the shrinking lens of the Yangtze River. Directed and narrated by acclaimed Canadian director Yung Chang, the film follows the lives of two teenagers, Yu Shui and Chen Bo Yu, as they come of age amidst the Wu Gorge and Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.

The film starts with lengthy sweep shots of the river framed by the surrounding mountains. The elegant beauty of the landscape is a testament to the vast natural resources of the region. However, the stark contrast between this sensory portrayal of the region and the waves of rapid Chinese industrialization and development that Zhang narrates, that seems to convert the public's way of life, is striking.

The narrative unfolds through a series of interviews with Yu Shui and Chen Bo Yu, as well as their parents and grandparents, detailing how these teenagers were forced to leave school to work on board the Jeckie, a splashy cruise liner that took tourists up the Yangtze River. The parents of the ship's passengers came from either the West or the East Coast of the United States, where they received counseling about the Three Gorges Dam and how it would flood the villages and towns along the Yangtze.

As Yu and Chen navigate the rapids of the Yangtze, they learn valuable life skills about customer service, although their life of working long hours and fending for themselves is a far cry from their previously sheltered lives in their small villages. Over time, the teenagers encounter deeper issues, losing their innocence as they are exposed to the harsh realities of China's economic expansion. They say goodbye to their families, and their appearances and attitudes change, as they grapple with the harsh realities of what this type of development means for their way of life.

Throughout the film, Chang juxtaposes the crude scenes of life on board the Jeckie, the splendor of the magnificent Yangtze River and its passengers, and the gaiety of the Western and rich Chinese tourists on board against the stark realities of displacement, poverty, and social inequality of the vast majority of Chinese society. We see how Western consumption-based lifestyles rub against Chinese struggles for survival, something that Bo and Shui experience firsthand.

Chang's documentary also gives insight into how China's growth may well come at the expense of the poorest and the most vulnerable segments of society. In one scene, we see the shattered homes of Shen and He Feng, who recall the rapid and unfeeling eviction campaigns undertaken to accommodate the dam. The submersion of their land in water and the lateral movement of people into corrugated iron towns have brought a bleak economic future for many, and not only for the people in the path of the dam's waters. The film describes how those who have remained are dependent on manufacturing jobs that are dependent on low wages and long hours, and the imbalance that this creates within the larger context of China's economic ascent.

Towards the end of the film, we see Yu Shui and her mother at a karaoke bar, where they sing songs about a displaced love and the pain of separation. Through their singing, they express the pain of the separation they have felt in a rapidly transforming world. Chang captures the raw emotions of the moment, and you can sense the deep angst and pain of vulnerable people rendered powerless against a tidal wave of progress.

In conclusion, Up the Yangtze is a haunting and evocative documentary that explores the harsh realities of China's economic boom. Chang's ability to capture the realities of life on the Yangtze brings us face-to-face with the hard choices that China is confronting as it accelerates its development, raising urgent and significant questions about the cost of growth and the role of the less fortunate during times of dramatic economic change.

Up The Yangtze is a 2008 documentary with a runtime of 1 hour and 33 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.5 and a MetaScore of 84.