How Bach Defeated Mao is a quiet but compelling film about the tremendous power of music. It is a very personal film about the pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei, who personally experienced the Cultural Revolution and learned how art can be political, how owning a piano can be dangerous and how playing one of Bach's Inventions can be potentially deadly. And yet, it is also at the same time a film about a new China, a country that is undergoing a process of change and is searching for meaning.