Two performers surfing over a cube stage from Scene I. [Liu Ying]

What has director Zhang Yimou been doing since his spectacular Opening Ceremony at the Beijing Olympics? He's been making a new film, a thriller-comedy starring hot errenzhuan actor Xiao Shenyang and due to be released around the New Year. For opera fans there is a new production of "Turandot" at the Bird's Nest in October. This is familiar territory for Zhang, who staged the opera in Florence in 1997 and at the Forbidden City in 1998. And just like Chinese people everywhere, Zhang's next big date is the celebration of National Day at Tian'anmen Square on October 1.

Before all these, however, Zhang is presenting his fourth Impression show, Impression Hainan at a semi open-air theater at Haikou, on Hainan Island.

The 70-minute show is directed by the so-called golden trilogy of Zhang, director Wang Chaoge and Fan Yue, the three core members of the directorial team of the Beijing Olympic ceremonies. It looks very different from the three previous Impression productions and clearly borrows heavily from some features of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. All three previous shows had a rich folk flavor, taking audiences on a journey through the history of local people's lives.

Impression Liu Sanjie, which premiered in October 2003 by the Lijiang River at Guilin in southwestern China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, combined popular folk songs by the local singing star Liu Sanjie, ethnic groups' culture and the fishing lights. Impression Lijiang, staged at the foot of the Yulong Snow Mountain in southwestern China's Yunnan province since July 2006, featured the scenery of snowy mountains, dialogue between the local people and nature and the ethnic Naxi people's lives in the ancient town of Lijiang. Impression West Lake, which opened last May by the lake in Hangzhou, in East China's Zhejiang province, tells the legendary love story of Xu Xian and the White Snake.

In Impression Hainan, there's no ethnic people, no folk music, no tragic love story. What you see is bikini-clad girls enjoying the sun by the beach. What you hear is the roar of the waves and original, modern music. What you feel is "I am on the beach, I want to do nothing but enjoy my holiday here."

As night falls and the soft breeze caresses the audience's faces, a woman says: "Are you ready for the show? Have you turned off your cell-phones? Can you hear the waves and breathe the fresh air? Now let's begin."

A casually dressed young man rushes out from the audience, shouting: "I am on the beach" and then takes off his shirt, pants and shoes, throws away his cell-phone and dives into the sea. Two other performers stand up in the audience, both answering phone calls. One man, playing a company director, says into his phone: "Forget about the board meeting, forget about the stock, I am on the beach and just want to be myself." Then he throws away his phone. The other, an office lady look-alike, answers the phone and tells a friend: "Am I crazy? Am I going to lose my job? Oh, let it be. I am on the beach and just want to enjoy the sunshine." Then she, too, throws away her phone.

Music starts, hundreds of big parasols cover the beach and a laser lightshow casts multi-colored patterns on them. Suddenly, hundreds of boys and girls emerge from the parasols and the beach brims with youthful vitality. Then the parasols disappear and the high-tech visual effects, reminiscent of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, create a vivid seascape, with waves rising and falling. People are swimming and surfing, and as the lights go down, their sandals shine with constantly changing patterns as the performers move.

"The Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games gave us such inspiration as well as helping us to solve many technical problems," said director Wang. "We three all feel we improved after doing the Olympic Games and many concepts we use in Impression Hainan can also be used in future projects."

If the first half of the show harked back to the Olympics, the second was reminiscent of Cirque Du Soleil's O show in Las Vegas. There was no longer a seascape created by high-tech wizardry, but a real beach scene, a sea of water one moment, then drying up to transform into a beach the next. The key to this magical scene was the "stage", which was actually a huge filter, allowing the water to surge into view, then disappear just as rapidly.

(China Daily, April 21, 2009)