Those of us who feel restive at the deluge of Hollywood dross targeted at kids are supposed to get solidly behind world-cinema alternatives like this: a gentle, nicely performed but very slow-moving film about a little Mongolian nomad girl who finds a puppy and keeps it, in secret, despite her father's objections. It grew on me, but I couldn't suppress the unworthy and philistine thought that it's the sort of right-on film that the Modem Parents from Viz comic would take their dismayed kids to see, rather than something vulgar that they might enjoy.

The Cave of the Yellow Dog has lots of enthusiastic supporters; to me, it has the arthouse look of a movie for adult cognoscenti, and perhaps it is the grownups who will appreciate the innocent, unselfconscious performances of the two little children on the screen.