REVIEWED - THE CAVE OF THE YELLOW DOG: BYAMBASUREN Davaa's follow- up to her 2003 art-house hit, The Story of the Weeping Camel - a film only a cad could have disliked - once again brings us among Mongolians and their animals.

This time round, the humans take centre stage. Blending documentary and dramatic techniques, the picture follows a young girl, the daughter of nomads, as she makes friends with a stray dog. Her father, suspecting that the mutt may lure wolves towards his sheep, reluctantly urges her to get rid of it, but, like the heroes of Kes and The Yearling, the kid stubbornly clings to her new friend.

Will the poor beast meet the same fate as the doomed animals in those earlier films? You have to sit through only 93 amiable minutes to find out.

Davaa's film, comprising mostly long and medium shots, features delightfully natural performances from its non-professional actors (a real life family named Batchuluun) and reveals many fascinating aspects of nomad life. In particular, the scene towards the close where the principals pack away their yurt show the ergonomic genius of the Mongolian people to good advantage. Such is the director's skill that the line between documentary and make-believe, initially blurred, eventually fades entirely from view.

But, though The Cave of the Yellow Dog is charming throughout, it is hard to escape the conclusion that we have seen it all before. Folk cinema from countries such as Iran and China has frequently focused on the adventures of rural children and their small consolations. This is a fine example of a class of film so familiar it almost forms a genre. Still, sensible readers will prefer it to that other more familiar order of dog film, in which the quadrupedal hero turns back into Tim Allen just before the credits.