From Xiuwen, in the heart of the Chinese province of Sichuan, Mr. Wu, Mr. Shen, and Mrs. Li - a team of itinerant film projectionists - travel through the countryside showing monthly film programs to peasants in twenty neighboring villages. They transport their film reels, projectors, and screens on bicycles and on their backs.

Unlike the early communist days, when traveling cinema was employed to spread propaganda into rural China, educational films ("The Growing of Oranges") may now share a bill with current Kung Fu hits ("The Revenge of Mt. Tai Sham"), although the events may still be used to remind citizens of Chinese laws; for instance, a slide before the motion pictures proclaims that "It is forbidden to use electricity for fish and rat trapping."

This lyrical documentary accompanies these guardians of the "Electric Shadows" - the translation of the Chinese name for cinema - from village to village as it explores their devotion to a profession threatened by the arrival of television and Chinese economic reforms.

"Well crafted... Anyone who has traveled, lived, or worked in the Chinese countryside will recognize in these scenes something of the rhythm and ritual of rural life. This, of course, is the power and appeal of this kind of realist documentary approach: the viewer is provided with an illusory sense of being there... A useful film for courses examining social and cultural change in the People's Republic of China. It is especially appropriate for courses that look explicitly at the intersection between the media and the state."—Ralph A. Litzinger, Education About Asia

"This well-crafted and subtle film follows the development of a traveling cinema troupe... to explore the impact of Post-Mao market reform on rural culture. Shows us the various aspects of daily life in the countryside and the difficult lives of itinerant film projectionists.... Brings out important questions regarding Chinese society and culture. This fine film would surely provoke fruitful discussions and reflections in any twentieth-century China course."—Asian Education Media Service