Reviews of last night's Opening Ceremony?

Last night's, Opening Ceremony was a long time in the making. Zhang Yimou, China's most internationally renowned director, was named director over two years ago. With 14,000 performers and 29,000 fireworks, the production value was huge. And, the expectations of 91,000 live specators and an estimated TV audience of 1 billion were running high, perhaps impossibly high.

How did it turn out? And, did Chinese and international audiences have different reactions?

I thought the opening drum-lights sequence was incredible. It grabbed me and set me on the edge of my seat, eager for the eye-candy and creative surprises that I was sure Zhang Yimou would whip up. The fireworks chain reaction from the Bird's Nest Stadium to Tiananmen Square induced cheers from the small crowd around the TV in my friend's apartment. The scroll motif was also a cool effect. But I found the rest of the sequences to drag a bit. I was glad that Zhang Yimou grounded the entire show in traditional and modern Chinese artforms, but, still, I didn't think the small movements of the puppets (mu ou ju) lent themselves to a stadium show and I didn't get the Peking Opera sequence. The theme song (Wo He Ni) sung by Sarah Brightman and Liu Hua was too slow for my tastes, although it was a nice touch to have the international duo performing. And was it really necessary for Li Ning to take an agonizingly slow lap around the entire Bird's Nest rather than just fly directly up to the fuse to light the torch? That harness must have been chaffing; give the guy - and the audience - a break.

So is this just a petulent American reaction? Am I just being unappreciative of Chinese artforms?

When the initial fireworks burst out, I thought out loud, "Ah, Zhang is so good." To which my Chinese friend jibed, "Zhang is good at pleasing foreingers." That was a simple reminder of an obvious fact: Americans and Chinese have different aesthetics and we find different things entertaining. At the same time, some performances have universal appeal. So what was last night? Universally appealing, universally disappointing, or mixed reactions cutting along national lines, or mixed reactions with no particular pattern?

-- Zach L, FACES '03, '04, '05