Show that made China’s point

From the nation which brought you the 8,000 buried terracotta warriors of Xian in 210BC and the 7,500-mile Long March in 1934, you would anticipate nothing less than a spectacle. The ceremony that opened the 29th Olympics outdid all of its predecessors in numbers, colour, noise and expense, demonstrating to the world that the new China intends to make its presence felt.

Fireworks — essentially a by product of gunpowder, one of several Chinese inventions celebrated during the course of the evening — filled the sky over Beijing, first in the form of a countdown to the ceremony as giant golden footprints traced an airborne path towards the new national stadium.

There followed an hour-long display that replayed Chinese history and gave elaborate expression to the country’s national pride.

Around 14,000 performers came and went across the floor of the Bird’s Nest stadium, acting out pageants devised by a cadre of designers, choreographers and composers under the supervision of Zhang Yimou, the great film director whose works include Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern and The House of Flying Daggers. Among his assistants was Mark Fisher, the British theatre designer who has worked with Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and U2.

Now 56, Zhang Yimou embodies much of China’s recent history. The son of a major in Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist army, he was forced to leave his studies during the Cultural Revolution of 1966 and sent to the country, where he was made to work on a farm and in a cotton mill. Allowed into Beijing once the winds of change had died down, he studied cinematography and became a member of the celebrated Fifth Generation of film-makers. The socio-political overtones of his early films displeased the government, but awards from juries in Cannes and Venice brought international acclaim.

Called on to pull out all the stops, he certainly produced a show to match the scale of its surroundings.

Beijing’s Olympic facilities have been built to the most lavish of specifications and regardless of expense. They are intended to show that China is a modern country built on ancient foundations, and Zhang’s show mirrored that desire. As is the way in China today, Mao Zedong was evident neither in word nor image; the only time you see him is when you pull out a banknote.

Eighty heads of state sat alongside Hu Jintao, the president of the People’s Republic, and Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee: Putin of Russia and Bush of the United States in adjacent seats; Fukuda of Japan and Sarkozy of France; and many, many more, the most notable absentees being Merkel of Germany and Brown of Britain, the latter’s decision to stay away underscored by the presence of his predecessor, the man who saddled him with the job of following this in four years’ time.

The scale of endeavour was, of course, astonishing. These Olympics are being staged virtually without limits. When darkness had fallen the show began at precisely 8 o’clock with a clap of thunder from 2,008 tightly ranked fou drums. These traditional instruments, the shape and size of laundry baskets, were lit from inside, the lights sequenced by computer, and played by robed dancer-drummers flailing illuminated sticks.

The Olympic rings were formed in light and the Chinese flag was carried in by 56 children who handed it to an octet of goose-stepping soldiers before Zhang Yimou and his collaborators gave us elaborate representations of China’s scroll paintings, its invention of moveable type (roll over, Jo Gutenberg, and tell William Caxton the news), and the merchants of the Silk Road. The pianist Lang Lang shared a keyboard with five-year-old Li Muzi, one of 23 million Chinese children said to be learning the instrument. In the most tooth-rottingly sentimental passage, a group of infants sang a little number in praise of the earth: “We plant trees, we sow seeds, the land turns green,” they chanted, in the midst of one of the world’s most polluted cities.