A passionate verité melodrama exposing Tibetan oppression under Chinese rule, Paul Wagner's Windhorse stands as an act of enormous political, if not creative, courage. Though most of the interiors were shot in Nepal, a relatively safe haven for Tibetan exiles, Wagner and his collaborator, Thupten Tsering, brought a small video camera into Chinese-governed Lhasa and, posing as tourists, snuck away with rare footage of the holy city. Fearing possible repercussions from the Chinese government, many Tibetans in the cast and crew had their names withheld from the end credits. There's a great documentary waiting to emerge from the film's contrived, pedestrian fictional trappings, and Wagner, an Oscar-winner for 1985's The Stone Cutters, would seem qualified to make it. Instead, he makes the documentarian's mistake of approaching the truth too directly, with little of the ambiguity that's essential to effective drama. Tibetan-American singer Dadon stars as a budding pop star in contemporary Lhasa who attracts the attention of a well-connected Chinese broadcast official (Richard Chang). She's offered the chance to sing songs in praise of Chairman Mao on local television, but her conscience is awakened when her cousin, a Buddhist nun, is brutally tortured for demonstrating against the Chinese in a crowded Lhasa marketplace. Windhorse's story neatly encapsulates Wagner's concerns with the assimilation of younger-generation Tibetans and the systemic means of propaganda and force used by the Chinese government to suppress their beliefs. But despite the admirable convictions of everyone involved, and some pictorially striking imagery, the film remains more interesting in its clandestine production than in its lukewarm execution.