Crocodile in the Yangtze follows China’s first internet entrepreneur and former English teacher, Jack Ma, as he battles US giant eBay on the way to building China’s first global internet company, Alibaba Group. An independent memoir written, directed, and produced by an American who worked in Ma’s company for eight years, Crocodile in the Yangtze captures the emotional ups and downs of life in a Chinese internet startup at a time when the internet brought China face-to-face with the West.

Crocodile in the Yangtze draws on 200 hours of archival footage filmed by over 35 sources between 1995 and 2009. The film presents a strikingly candid portrait of Ma and his company, told from the point of view of an “American fly on a Chinese wall” who witnessed the successes and mistakes Alibaba encountered as it grew from a small apartment into a global company employing more than 16,000 staff.

Special thanks to Porter Erisman, Director of Crocodile in the Yangtze, for sharing this film so generously with the Tech in Asia community.