Some folks have taken exception to my commentary on the Olympics opening ceremony. No problems there. So thought you might enjoy this from the Kaiju Shakedown blog on Variety, seems like a lot of the mainland Chinese bloggers also hated it, and at least one of the comments is quite funny.

While most people seem very impressed with the Olympic opening ceremony staged by Zhang Yimou this weekend, the Western press has largely missed the fact that a lot of the Chinese internet talk is about how “empty” and “meaningless” the ceremony was. While the New York Times and others praised the lavish spectacle and dwelt on the positive reaction, Chinese netizens took to the internets to review the ceremony like they would one of Zhang’s movies and the result was, “First-rate techniques, second-rate performances, no ratings for the content.” (Strong Nation Forum)

Another commenter writes:

“Zhang Zimou did not disappoint ss a ‘master’ of the visual –he is a master who likes everything big and he successfully turned the open ceremony into an exciting temple festival.

We all know that Zhang Yimou likes ‘bigness.’ In HERO, we saw that he liked the ‘big unity.’ In CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, we saw that he liked ‘girls with big tits.’ In the Olympics opening ceremony, we saw that he liked ‘big scenes.’

Regrettably, these big scenes were empty and spiritless. This is like a mouth with a tongue cut off — it does not matter how wide the mouth is opened because you can only hear some unclear moaning sounds.“

Another reaction: “What does China have except people?” And some Chinese posters speculated that you could never have a ceremony like this in the US because American tax payers would revolt. Words like “empty” and “vacuous” were also bandied about on forums like Bullog.cn and at the forum Those Were the Days one commenter said that it was a mistake to emphasize size and expense and lavishness when the world was moving towards more frugality. Another post, largely supportive of Zhang’s work, said that the television commentary on CCTV was amateur and if it had been translated China would be “the butt of jokes.”

A lot of Grady Hendrix’s info for the above piece comes from this piece at EastSouthWestNorth.

(Song Shinan at Bullog.cn)

When the state leaders entered, the music was actually the march of the athletes. The world must have been stunned. (By the way, when the team from Guinea entered after more than one hour later, the camera focused on Secretary-General Hu with the sub-title “Guinea”). They must be making fun of our handsome leader.

Later on, there were the clay musical instruments being played in a laser light show. This felt like rock n’ roll, but actually it was the same thing as the gongs-and-drums show in the opening ceremony of the Asian Games that was held in Beijing. Zhang Yimou loves percussion instruments. But unfortunately, he only likes gongs and drums. Basically, the drums never stopped, not even during the tranquil episode with the Tai’chi exercise. In the end, it makes people want to smash the drums.

Zhang Yimou might have felt great about the big footprints created by electronic fireworks across Beijing. But I found it hilarious, especially when the big footprint rolled over the Mao Zedong memorial hall. How did Mao feel about his head being stepped upon?

The girls who danced on the painting wore black clothes like martial artists. They danced well, and they created a Chinese painting through their dance. But this was disgraceful, because what kind of Chinese painting was that? This was a child’s scratchings! Even Crayon Shinchan could draw better than this.

This was followed by a bunch of guy chanting . Actually, they should have been chanting Chu poetry because these people were like priests praying at a funeral. At that moment, I thought that I was watching some ghost movie because the atmosphere was so eerie.

Up to this point, director Zhang had been showing that China is populous. Even he was embarrassed, so he sent out the showboat Lang Lang. I was ready to praise that, but immediately a group of Red Army-like people surrounded the piano — we can never give up any opportunity to show that China is populous!

When the Taichi boxers showed up, I finally nodded my approval because there was finally an individual performance. But director Zhang quickly slapped me back into reality — a mass of people ran around and around but they did not know how to form an Eight Diagrams figure. All they did was form one circle, without the Yin versus Yang. Director Zhang, have you seen the South Korean flag? Don’t you know about the Eight Diagrams? Perhaps you don’t want to give credit to the South Koreans, so you just settled with a circle.

Then we get into the part about presenting Chinese words. This is even more hilarious. Many people were used to form words such as “Huo 和” and “Tea 茶” as if these are the essence of China. But if the Athens Olympics had used lots of people to form words such as “Venus” or “Ancient Greek sculpture,” wouldn’t you find that hilarious?

In the Silk Road portion, a small girl was being flown like a kite. I was delighted, because Zhang Yimou must be paying tribute to fellow director Chan Kaige for his human kite in . Who can forget that?

The introduction of folk dramas is an even bigger failure. The Beijing opera is not an art with many people involved, but here we are once again treated with a mass scene. The Kunqu opera was better because there were just two people, but the singing of the man was really too terrible. Yes, I don’t understand the art of Kunqu, but the majority of the world probably have the same ears that I do. Why push this type of wretched yelling? (The female singer was better, but she sounded more like pop-singing than Kunqu.)

Finally, there is the Olympics song. Objectively speaking, the two singers have first-rate techniques. But Liu Huan was dressed like a peasant standing next to the Moon Goddess. This was like the legendary Wu Gang who chopped down the cassia tree, except that Wu Gang did not have a head as big as Liu Huan. Even more weird was that the Chinese lyrics of the song were pretty lousy. You cannot get something this bad even if you asked Guo Qingming or Wei Minglun to write the lyrics. Besides, the rhythm of the song was too slow and does not excite people. It was more like a choir hymn. When the athletes hear this song during the competition, they will fall asleep. They can play this during the marathon race, but it is unsuitable for other events.

The ignition of the Olympic flame was creative and it was the only bright spot of the opening ceremony. This invokes the ancient story of Kuafu chasing the sun. It was fortunate that the final torchbearer was Li Ning. If it was someone like table tennis player Zhang Yining, the suspension in the air would have just about killed her.

So you guys who hated it, you ain’t alone.

Isaac Hayes is dead, just 65 years old. Of course he’s known for the soundtrack to Shaft and for a late career resurgence as the voice of Chef on South Park. But aside from that, along with partner David Porter, he co-wrote many of the greatest hits on the Stax/Volt label, songs like Hold On I’m Coming and Soul Man.

Unrelated, Dark Knight is #1 at the box office for the 4th week in a row, this time edging out Pineapple Express. It’s been years since any film has held the #1 spot for so long. Dark Knight is now the #3 top grossing film in the US and will definitely hit the #2 spot, though it will not pass Titanic. Yes, it is a comic book movie. Yes, it’s not perfect. But it really is that good.

Last thing …. since I don’t have any TV antenna, I can’t get TVB or ATV at home. I downloaded the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and watched them yesterday afternoon. I think you know that I’m one of those people who is upset with China’s conduct leading up to the Olympics. And I’ve read plenty of bloggers who have said they didn’t like the opening ceremonies for a variety of mostly nonsensical reasons. It was artistic, it was beautifully done, if you couldn’t appreciate it for its own sake, you’re merely showing off your own limitations.