Having visited China recently, much of Yung Chang's beautifully photographed documentary Up the Yangtze felt very familiar—an ancient agrarian culture rapidly transforming itself to contemporary society remains evident all along the tourist trail. My friend and I avoided taking the advertized river cruise up the Yangtze to the Three Gorges Dam that frequents popular China tours. Still there was no way to completely escape the highly controlled tourist packages designed to showcase only the "best" of China, so that westerners have much reduced chances of seeing poverty or uglier images.

So the sequences that show the preparation of the river boat staff for the upcoming cruise, the beyond cheesy "It's So Easy . . . To Learn Chinese-y" song, and guided tour through the apartment for a relocated resident are all so typical of regular China tours for westerners. But this isn't the main thrust of Yang's documentary, nor does he emphasize the ecological devastation wreaked upon the once pristine landscape.

Eschewing preachy approaches taken by environmentalists, Yang instead painstakingly paints an emotional portrait of the indigenous citizens directly impacted by the transition, primarily focusing on young Yu Shui and 18 year old Chen Bo Yu as they begin work on a Yangtze cruise boat for tourists. Yu Shui's poor, illiterate parents scrape a subsistence living near the soon to be flooded river bank. They can't afford to send her to high school, so the timid girl reluctantly accepts work as a dishwasher. In contrast, charismatic Chen Bo Yu is far more sophisticated—selected for his good looks and command of English, he works various facets of customer service and gains extra tips for his singing and charming personality.

By concentrating on the two youths, we follow them through their emotional adjustments aboard the river boat. Relating to westerners ranks supreme for the tour company, so both are assigned English names: Yu Shui now goes by "Cindy" while Chen Bo Yu takes the name "Jerry." Both face different psychological challenges. Tears stream down Yu Shui's homesick face, but she gradually makes a few friends and eventually goes on shopping sprees and applies makeup routinely. Chen Bo Yu seems a bit awkward initially conversing naturally in English, but his supervisor spots another flaw that he believes is common for most single children—a tendency to be spoiled and self-centered. Chen Bo Yu's task is to find the proper balance between humility and confidence and adopt the proper attitude if he is to remain in this service industry.

While the youth adjust to tourist boat life, we witness similar changes along the river bank. Yu Shui's parents eventually must abandon their ramshackle shack for higher ground, where they must buy food and water for the first time. The filmmaker need not preach about their sorrow; it's etched on their faces. Chang's camera catches the father painfully gaze upon the rising waters that cover the farmland he once worked, and the words of an anguished shop owner cry out “China is too hard for common people.” It's a cry that is repeated all along the Yangtze and most humanely captured on Yung Chang's melancholy documentary.

Up the Yangtze floats across the screen, leaving indelible metaphoric imagery of China's rapidly changing way of life. It's a poignant cinematic tour well worth the journey.