Impression Liu Sanjie Night Show, Yangshuo

Impression Liu Sanjie (印象刘三姐 Yìnxiàng Liú Sānjiě) is what happens when a filmmaker gets a river instead of a soundstage. Zhang Yimou — later of Beijing Olympics opening-ceremony fame — took a two-kilometre stretch of the Li River (漓江 Lí Jiāng) near Yangshuo, made the water itself the stage, and lit twelve karst peaks behind it as scenery. It has been running since 2004 and remains the template every Chinese outdoor show has copied since.

The story is loosely built on the Liu Sanjie folk legend, a Zhuang minority singer from Guangxi, but narrative is not really the point. The point is scale: around 600 performers, most of them local farmers and fishermen rather than professional dancers, poling rafts in formation, hauling long red silks across the water, and lining the banks with lanterns while the peaks flare from indigo to gold behind them. There is a sequence with dozens of cormorant fishermen and their lamps that is genuinely beautiful.

Tickets tier from around ¥198 ($28) at the back to ¥828 ($116) in the premium boxes. Save your money — the back rows sit higher and take in the entire width of the set, which is exactly what you came for. The show runs 70 minutes, nightly in the March-November main season, usually at 19:30 with a later second performance in peak months.

Is it touristy? Completely. Is it worth it? Yes, once. This is one of very few big Chinese tourist spectacles that actually delivers the spectacle.