AllMovie

Despite the misleading title, Tsering Rhitar's Chaksampa - The Yogi Who Built Iron Bridges offers not a hagiographical portrait of an eastern religious figure, but an extended glimpse of an organization devoted to mounting and performing its own unique operas - The Tibetan Lhamo Association of Kathmandu. Rhitar's cameras observe the men and women of Lhamo as they develop, and then perform, an original opera based on the life of the titular character - Thangtong Gyalpo, a yogi who indeed built iron bridges, and who is widely credited with bringing opera to Tibet. As the film rolls on, the operatic participants doggedly work toward their goal of performing the opera in front of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in Dharamsala, India.