A BEND IN THE YELLOW RIVER is a sympathetic and intelligent portrait of a once-great civilisation in turmoil - embracing the ideals of a market economy, but unable, or unwilling to jettison the past; of the effects of the Cultural Revoloution, which left a large section of the population deprived of an education, of the devastation of the one-child policy. Witty, quirky and touching, this is a stunning view of another way of life.