Dirs: Mailisi, Saifu. China. 2002. 105 mins.

Redolent of Nikita Mikhalkov's 1991 Urga (though more idealised) crossed with 2001's Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner (though much more conventional), Heavenly Grassland tells of a small Chinese boy adopted by a family in the remote steppes of Inner Mongolia. An intimate, very small-scale story with barely five characters, all wrapped up in a big, colourful, Cinemascope format, the film's strong spectacular and exotic qualities and appealing performances make it a highly attractive candidate for specialist festivals. Directed by the prolific husband and wife team of Mailisi and Saifu, there is also the possibly that it will attract limited arthouse business and small screen outings.

The film is seen through the eyes of Tiger (Ning Cai), a small Han Chinese boy whose father is in prison and has asked a fellow-inmate, the brash, heavy-drinking Shergan (Tuman), to look after the child. On his release, Shergan keeps his word and duly drags a protesting Tiger off to his home in remote Inner Mongolia. Bewildered and repelled by the primitive lifestyle, the traumatised boy repeatedly tries to escape and refuses to eat or speak.

Meanwhile Shergan has his own troubles. His drinking and gambling habits have led to a divorce from his beautiful, independent-minded wife Baruma (Narenhua), and although he is currently shut out of her yurt (tent) and made to sleep outdoors on a cart, he still hopes to win her back. He is also estranged from his brother, Tengali, who is himself secretly in love with Baruma and, when the love triangle becomes unbearable, announces his decision to join the Chinese army.

As the seasons rotate from lush green summer to deep-frozen winter, and back again, these conflicts are gradually worked through. Tiger accepts and grows to love his idyllic new homeland and the couple edges towards a reconciliation. Soaring, wide-screen sequences of the empty vistas mingle with tightly-framed, impressionistic details of a world whose ancient nomadic way of life is preserved in aspic. The film is apparently set in the present day, but the community seems untouched by modernity.

In the end this visual feast is as insubstantial as a Chinese takeaway and those in search of a gritty realist portrayal of the region need not apply: not for nothing is the Propaganda Department of Inner Mongolia acknowledged in the closing credits. The audience may also wonder whether Chinese-Mongolian relations are quite as harmonious as the film suggests.

But Heavenly Grassland contains some gorgeous set-pieces, such as the poetic sequence in which Turmen and Baruma renew their marriage vows or a thrilling hunt for a marauding wolf, whose life is finally spared by the brothers out of respect for tradition. It also has one outstanding emotional moment, when a soldier stumbles into the yurt covered in terrible burns and the shocked family pretends not to recognise Tengali. At such moments, the actors bring a directness and simplicity to their performances which sound a note of truth amid the theme-park ethnic trappings.

Prod cos: China Film Group Corporation, Neimeng Gu Film Studio, Inner Mongolia Film Studio.
Int'l sales: Film Bureau Beijing.
Prods: Yang Buting, Han Sanping, Saifu.
Scr: Chen Ping.
Cinematography: Geritu.
Prod Des: Liu Xingang.
Ed: Zhang Jianhua.
Music: San Bao.
Main cast: Narenhua, Ning Cai, Tumen.