The real estate bust of 2008 wreaked financial devastation on bankers, hedgefund managers and ordinary Americans. But instead of heeding the lesson that a deal that sounds too good to be true probably is, investors, like junkies seeking a fix, went hunting for the next opportunity for pie-in-the-sky returns. They found it in the wild, wild east of China.

Jed Rothstein’s riveting documentary, as scary in its implications as any horror movie, elucidates how defunct American businesses become shell company proxies for Chinese firms. These reverse mergers, as they are called, promise Americans big returns in the explosively growing Chinese market, but The China Hustle reveals that many of these Asian companies are empty shells themselves. Illuminating interviews with whistleblowers, bankers and investors suggest another devastating bubble is about to burst. Rothstein has fashioned a gripping augury of a financial meltdown on the horizon. Time to get that investment portfolio in order.