Sports

Olympics opening ceremony video leaked

by julianw | July 30, 2008 at 12:02 pm

10818 views | 4 Recommendations | 10 comments

A South Korean news team has sneaked into the Beijing National Stadium and released a video of rehearsals for next week's opening ceremony.

Much to the dismay of some Chinese YouTube commenters, a Korean news team sneaked into Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium and videotaped rehearsals of the much-hyped Zhang Yimou-orchestrated opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

The video of a mock procession of athletes was followed by exquisitely choreographed dance routines, and powerful images of massed ranks of kung fu fighters dressed in white.

Games organisers gave no immediate response to the leak. Sun Weide, the chief Olympics spokesman, said he had only just been made aware of the broadcast and had nothing to say. "We hope to surprise the world with an excellent performance," he said.

But it was not the first sight the public had been given of what promises to be a spectacular display: there was no disguising the fireworks display that lit up the night sky of the Chinese capital last week during another rehearsal.

To the organisers, the opening ceremony is the single most important element of these Games, mixing an almost religious element of ritual with a demonstration of national culture that is supposed to restore China to its historic role as one of the world's leading civilisations.

Here are some reviews of the leaked video from Twitter users.

markmckay : OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONY LEAKED, looks freaking awesome:

lonniehodge : RT @niubi @danwei korean clip of opening ceremony practice on korean site http://snurl.com/37kw9 looks somewhat fascist. confascisism? HA

themack: just saw the korean "pirate video" of bj olympics opening ceremony, "confufascism" looks amazing!: themack: just saw

6 See all footage | View Slideshow

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recommend This comment thread is now closed

JeffHuang

at 12:20 on July 30th, 2008

The Chinese will not be happy with this. The ceremony does look really impressive though.

The all seeing eye (not verified)

at 18:58 on August 1st, 2008

You guys are so naive...You really think the Koreans would jeopardize relations with their next door neighbor...the giant rising of the East, over a temporary sporting event's damn opening ceremony? Is the interest, curiosity & anticipation higher or lower after the "leak"? Wake up, people. Would Beijing hire the best marketing people in the world for the event? Of course they would! So what do marketing people do for their clients to drum up interest for a "product" or event? THEY MANUFACTURE CONTROVERSIAL NEWS JUST BEFORE THE "EVENT", just take a look at the recent movie and music news, aren't movie and album releases preceded by headline controversial news? So you think Beijing and Hollywood are strangers to each other? I would not be surprised if more "controversial news" surfaces, or that the best of the best hollywood marketing people are working for Beijing. "create controversial news before a release" - it's the oldest trick in the book. Beijing is not that far from Hollywood, the world is not so big, people are people, people! After all, God said: Thou shall not judge. Who is pretending to be God this time?

Milieunet

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 03:34 on July 31st, 2008

julianw, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Good work, but the video is gone. See http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/video-olympic-opening-ceremony for video

Oopsy Daisy (not verified)

at 19:42 on August 1st, 2008

What are these??

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/video/?vxSiteId=6eb02996-d2d9-45cc-bb79-8b5b3340f4f8&vxChannel=Olympics&vxClipId=1383_357573&vxBitrate=300

http://www.totallycrap.com/videos/videos_leaked_video_olympic_opening_ceremony/

David Chen (not verified)

at 15:45 on July 31st, 2008

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Traditionally Media are allowed to bring equipments in to the prep rehearsal, to test equipment and camera placements etc. But this is the first time ever that a new agency released the leak video of a rehearsal before the opening ceremony. Because something like this had never happened before, the IOC is still trying to figure out what kind of punishment it should give to the Nation of Koreans. They not only ruin it for the rest of the world, but they also may lose their boardcasting rights for the game.

Pascal Fructose (not verified)

at 04:43 on August 6th, 2008

Can someone tell me if this is more new footages of the ceremony, or what?
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=NyL0FPItHlQ

uilo (not verified)

at 07:34 on August 8th, 2008

Yeaah!
Watch 2008 Beijing Olympics online at http://sowonder.net/broadcast/?d=Beijing_Olympics_online
***free high quality stream***

Roberto Rossi (not verified)

at 12:48 on August 8th, 2008

Check out <a href="http://celebvidx.com/watch.php?x=Olympic_opening_live_cam">Olympics opening<a> video shot by australian sportsman, right from the stage!