We’ve previously taken a lighter look at the East vs. West culture clash, but today we turn to something a bit more serious. Goodbye Shanghai is a beautifully directed and cinematically breathtaking short film by director Adam Christian Clark who, while still a film school undergrad at USC, became the youngest person in history to direct a US broadcast television series, CBS’s Big Brother.

In 2006, Clark traveled to Shanghai, where he wrote and directed Mainland China’s first reality TV show. The series eventually swept the nation with such near-hysteria that in 2007, China’s communist government banned all future prime-time reality TV. Last year, Clark returned to China to shoot Goodbye Shanghai, which explores the detrimental effects of Western imperialism on contemporary Chinese culture.

The film went on to win a number of short film festival awards around the world.

Though the full film is available in HD for free on Vimeo, the $4.99 price tag makes the DVD more than worth it.