I have watched a lot of accounts and dramatizations of mountaineering expeditions, but this is the oddest one I have seen. I guess it is because this film tries to be more than one genre. It is part thriller, part documentary of Chinese Himalayan history, part romance and some propaganda thrown in for good measure. Too much of everything at different times, it seemed to me.

The thriller part was like a Hollywood movie, with more last second rescues and literal cliffhangers than any climber might experience in a lifetime, and some of them so dramatic I expected to see a superhero cape flappin... read the rest.