This essay examines Michelangelo Antonioni's Chung Kuo Cina ( China ) (1972), a documentary made in and about the People's Republic of China during the height of the Cultural Revolution. Detailing the documentary's controversial reception and analyzing Chung Kuo’ s emphasis on visual reality in opposition to the PRC's official socialist realism, I argue that Chung Kuo constituted a critical cross-cultural project, while providing a unique portrayal of quotidian life in Maoist China.