Post your reviews of the Chinese display here!

It was a good show, but I personally found it to be "too safe," if you know what I mean. I expected a bit more from a Chinese display and from a firm like Pyromagic Productions Ltd.

I like it how it was well organized and very "smooth" and "clean." The colors of the fireworks were colorful and vivid. They also made good use of the whole area by shooting 4-5 shells at the same time. It was a very Chinese display, and I liked it. However, I can't say that there was something really special about it. Sometimes, it was too simple. There were some segments which were better than others and many of them resembled to one another, which is not good.

The song selection was good in general. Chinese music is not thing, but it's interesting to listen to it. Actually, I don't think it was pure Chinese music; I might be wrong on this.

Another problem is that the show seemed too slow when you compare it to the type of songs they chose. Again, this is probably because they were trying to be "safe." The synchronization was very good, but it can definitely be improved. I'm afraid that Pyromagic Productions Ltd. will be easily beaten by the upcoming superpowers.

I think if this show was improved and made more complex, it could win an award, but as it is, it just doesn't push the limits.

The finale, I guess, kinda woke up everyone because I sense that the public also found it slow and sometimes boring. However, I have to say that despite all the cheers, I did not like the finale. Yes, it was colorful, but very cheap. Imagine if we descend to that level of intensity! That would be the end of finales. It was a very Chinese finale, but not intense at all.

It's kind of hard to rate this show because it is different as it is always the case with Chinese displays. There were also some parts that I liked, but which I'm sure the public found them too repetitive and boring, and perhaps at times, they quickly lost patience.

My rankings

1. England
2. China
3. Spain
4. Mexico

This ought to be short as I need to go to bed.

I was slightly disappointed by the Chinese display tonight. Perhaps, as was the case with Spain, I expected more from the firm based on their reputation. I found that the Chinese theme was too broad and that while many of their fireworks were rather unique, the segments seemed drawn out, repetitive - the Olympic Rings part comes to mind - and overly symmetrical.

I liked the soundtrack - particularly in the first segment which seemed to be a kids song. In my opinion it set the stage for a very lively and fun-filled show. The use of the "Great Wall" was really great - it should be a mandatory feature in every country's display - I can already picture a German Godzilla destroying it and Canadian Mounties riding along it... forget I mentioned it.

All in all, I'm having a hard time deciding whether the Chinese team outdid the Spanish team - Don Quixote battling the Great Wall of China! I've been videotaping every display this year and I think that I will need to re-watch tonights show to figure out where things lay... so far.

TRae's tentative standings through 4 displays:

England
Spain
Hong Kong/ China
Mexico (who may not have been that much worse than China)

Good evening,

I was very impressed with China's display from beginning to end, and the general design of the show was very well devised along with a fair selection of music. There were so many effects taking place that it was even hard for me to keep track at times; they were hugely diverse and they were integrated with the music nicely.

I very much enjoyed how the fireworks literally felt like they were dancing with the music compared to other displays we've seen, especially with the colorful mines in one segment. The sequencing was incredibly well done for the majority of the display and was very enjoyable and integral as well.

All that said, this show was incredibly redundant, especially with firing scheme and the excessive use/longevity of many of the effects seen. Even some colors, particularly red and green, became too common for my tastes. Finally, I found at times that some of the music started too abuptly in some instances.

The finale was a little too short and lacked vehemence, but it was still thrilling and had nice color transitions. The display itself was quite loud!

In all, a very artistic and traditional display, but surprisingly repetitive in many cases. However, a strong effort from the Chinese team and it was quite an exciting performance. I liked that beautiful simulation of that waterfall, too (could be a structure to resemble the Great Wall of China).

I still stand firmly with England at this point. More details later today, but thank goodness we were spared again with the weather; all the severe cells were directly to our East according to radar imagery once I departed for the display.

A pleasant night to all of you.

Trav.

I really enjoyed this pyrotechnic show and I didn't feel disappointed at all! I think that the strongest part of this show was the quality of material used. Just few words:

* This show featured one of the widest range of shapes made with shells, including the "2008" figure made of a set of four shells. For a picture: http://www.pyroplanet.com/index.html

* The Great Wall was great, with tower on each side.

* The quick rainbow effect was great too.

* Several nautical pieces were exhibited. I enjoyed the straight lines of red and green flares made on the lake. To reach this level of precision is impressive.

* Pyromagic used a lot of white and golden electric comets and many rockets. Multi-break shells were also displayed through the show. For instance, some comets burst in small kamuros and ended with a cluster of stars. That was not a cheap effect, for sure!

I have more to tell about this show but I must sleep now and I have to work hard over the next two days. (Please note that my complete report on PyroPlanet.com is delayed until Saturday.)

Fred

Country participant: Hong Kong, China
Company: Pyromagic Productions Ltd.
Date of presentation: July 11th, 2007

Severe weather yet again threatened to ruin another performance, much like the case for China in 2004. A cold front moving in slowly from the Southwest and West from Eastern Ontario was bringing with it a strong squall line with vigorous cells associated with it. On radar, moderate to strong cells were closing in on the island at about 4:00 p.m and delivered a good soaking for just over 2 hours. We were dropped from the severe thunderstorm watch at 5:30 p.m, but clearly, the most severe cells on radar in the nation were no more than one hour to our East and Northeast. The rains quickly subsided by 7:00 p.m leaving us behind the cold front with mostly cloudy conditions, less impressive cloud formation and some lingering showers, but then the clouds began to break letting the sun gracefully shine creating a beautiful sunset and later perfect conditions for this promising display of China. The weather was also perfect for the simulation of the Great Wall of China, which worked out beautifully.

The show started off a little late (I think this was due to narration), but then commenced dramatically after the impeccable countdown with some unique powerful (quite loud) blasts of shells of red bows while lower candles assisted them. These effects were continued for a little while longer until they transitioned over to shells that took the form of a red "x" centered in the middle of a red circle of ball stars, which also were fired for a good amount of time and later seen several other moments during the show. There was a huge diversity of shells, (one of the most diverse I can remember) including shells of hearts, triple rings of red, green and blue (sometimes yellow), defined red stars "*", double ring shells, weeping willows, double ringed farfalle shells seen for a few moments, very deep sparkles and glitters similar to Mexico's (made it feel almost like a disco), smileys, butterflies with distinctive antennae, Saturns of purple and green stars, light blue clovers, frequent use of red and green stars at mid level that burst into loud cracklers (my favorites since they always made things seem intense), salutes, shell of shells and multi-breakers of red and green and sometimes burst into small kamuros. My personal favorites were the gradual ascending white rockets that made a highly defined simulation of the screaming serpents in one segments (not sure if it was the rocket making the noise or if it was part of the music at the time ) and of course, the gorgeous Great Wall seen near the beginning!

Low level effects include fountains, red flares (I think these were the nautical flares), and gorgeous colorful mines, where they often had very excellent sequencing and practically right on cue. There were also many rapidly central scattered shots of red and white stars that burst often into subsequent ball stars of the same colors as they rose to mid levels.

Synchronization was done fairly well throughout the show and many pieces, particularly the mines, were perfectly with the music and the rhythm. This made it very interesting and enjoyable because it felt as if the fireworks literally were dancing in a unique way! The music choice was personally quite clever and worked very well with this kind of thematic approach, in which case, the theme was fitting. The theme itself, though, was a little vague and a bit broadly demonstrated. However, it was clear what it denoted: the idea of culture. Many of the effects were demonstrated well to support this.

The design and quality of products in the Chinese performance were simply superb and I loved every aspect of it, especially with respect to the theme and the multitude of special effects. Again, there was such a huge variety of shell effects seen that it served well in creativity. The Great Wall of China alone was a good definition of Chinese culture and perhaps indirectly to show off one of the 7 wonders of the world. However, it would have been nice to see it shine once again near the end of the display since I felt it would have added in nicely in the segment just before the penultimate piece.

The colors in the show were very subtle and intriguing and suited the theme. I personally loved some of the deeper colors chosen because they made excellent contrasts most of the time. However, I didn't find the color choice all that much in rich variety compared to the other displays we've seen so far; many colors were quite repetitive, especially the appearance greens and reds among many effects.

As for the finale, it was less than I expected it to be, but it had good crescendo, just not to the point. The color transitions were very nicely delivered, however and the rate of fire was acceptable. What we saw there was more fitting for a faux finale, personally.

Trav's personal rankings:

-Synchronization: 9.5/10-Very nicely done in this sector and many of the lower effects were interestingly sequenced.
-Colors: 7.5/10-Colors were in reasonable variety and had some excellent deep colors to contrast in mixture. However, there was simply too much use of many of them, including the reds and greens.
-Creativity/Originality/Concept: 8/10-This display was quite creative, especially since there was a good connection with the theme, use of a diverse amount of shells, and especially the use of the Great Wall. I didn't find the display super unique, but it was very, as always, traditional and quite artistic more than anything else. The overall design was great. The quality was also excellent.
-Choice of music: 9/10-This was an enjoyable selection of music and suited the theme very well, while simultaneously enforcing Chinese culture. It also allowed for some neat transitions in tempo.
-Finale/Overall appreciation: 8.5/10-Though too short and not enough vehemence, the finale was still quite a thriller with all the colors released and the multitude of shells bursting everywhere. As always, cheers of approval from the slightly smaller crowd after the loudest volley of salutes heard so far this year!
-Overall: 8.5/10

^^^
Again, I'll probably have to adjust scores later on to accurately compare the participants, but this should still serve as an idea of where I stand with each display in terms of rank. *These are also my personal rankings based on my viewpoints via De Lorimier and Notre-Dame streets.

This was an excellent display and was very interestingly crafted, too. The sequencing was impressive, clever and an important key factor in this display, particularly at low level where mines and candles were commonly and exquisitely on cue. My criticisms mostly relate to redundancy, but there was surprisingly quite a bit of it. The colors, particularly red and green, were much too frequent for my tastes, while they commonly made an appearance as part of many effects as well. I found that the firing scheme was also repetitive and made things a little imbalanced, particularly at high levels of sky where the same rate of firing was seen to the left and right. Though the variations of shells were strongly diverse, almost all of them were used excessively when fired; in other words, they were fired for a little too long in duration. Unrelated to repetition, I found that some of the segments and music started too abruptly one after another, which sort of made things a little less fluid in nature.

All that was said, this was a very strong, enjoyable, artistic and fitting performance delivered by the Chinese team and are certainly in contention for a Jupiter in my mind, though I still have England as #1 to date. Again, I'm just happy no lingering showers made an appearance during the display last night. We had the right amount of wind and humidity dropped off to an acceptable level with the passage of that front. Talk about threats this year!

Next up is the U.S.

Trav.

The show started off a little late (I think this was due to narration)

The show started with a 4- or 5-minute delay for an uncommon and comical reason: the floating stage was removed too late! I have never seen that! First, the Chinese official made a very long speech. Then, a singer made a long performance. As a result, the official ceremony ended at 9:52 (it is usually over no later than 9:45). In addition, the person in charge to remove the floating stage with a boat obviously experienced some problems since the stage went in the wrong direction!

Fred

Thanks for the clarifications, Fred. I did hear some talking at about 10:00 p.m to about 10:03-04, so I thought it was some narration involved with the display at first.

And that's quite a comical story indeed!

Edit: I just edited my report to correct some minute grammatical errors as I did write it up rather quickly.

Trav.

In the first moments of the Chinese display, I really thought we would get an eyeful and that the finale would be quite powerful. Well, I was wrong. There were moments of originality during the display....I am thinking of that red "cloud" which lingered a long time and fell down slowly, almost reaching the ground! As for the finale, it was way too short

Since the new season has started, I have this feeling that the pace and intensity of the displays have been too low, except for England. I think that this will change with the next four participants....or is this wishful thinking I don't think so...
The best is yet to come, that's for sure!

This is how I rank the countries so far:

1. England (without hesitation)
2. Spain
3. China
4. Mexico

Pierre

Hi Pierre,

Thanks for sharing your commentary with us. It would appear as if we have the same rankings; I was having trouble placing China and spain when it came to comparison, but I personally prefer Spain over China for several reasons, which I will outline at the end of the competition.

And yes, I totally am in agreement about the finale. Let's hope to see some impressive ones coming up. I'm just hoping Panzera's will be big since they were lacking quite a bit for the past two years. In other words, the last time we've seen a big conclusion with respect to Panzera was 3 years ago.

Trav.

Later is better than never. My complete report is finally online on:

http://www.pyroplanet.com

Fred

Hi Fred,

sorry, there are quite a few technical errors in your report.

For the Great Wall set piece, you wrote "We tried to make it as symmetrical as possible" . I heard from Wilson Mao that they had made it asymmetrical to look more like the real wall.

You wrote: Numerous cakes of rockets along the lake came into life

These were cakes of comets: rockets are a type of self-propelled firework with a stick for stabilisation. Stars which are self-propelled are often called go-getters and are, in a way, like stickless-rockets - but they're not actually rockets!

You wrote: the stars went dark for just one second and came back as crackling pistils

A pistil is the central core of stars in a shell which has an outer sphere and one
(or more) inner spheres - and gets its name from the parts of a flower. The stars you described are made of colour or comet composition followed by a "dark relay" with a central core of crackling composition.

You wrote Here, three 8-shape shells to illustrate ears of pigs

These weren't ears of pigs. "888" is a very lucky number in Chinese culture. There were other shells which had the noses of pigs (two small circles inside a larger ring) which were used to symbolize the Year of the Pig.

Regards,

Paul.

Hi Paul,

I always thought that when pistils were commonly referred to in the realm of fireworks, they related to the idea of typical flowers. I just thought it was interesting.

As for 888, if that's the case, then that means next year on August 8th, 2008, there might be a big celebration in China for the occasion. Of course, our lucky day was last week due to 777, though Mexico had bad luck in the beginning of their display (I mentioned this at the beginning of my report for that show).

Trav.

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your careful reading. I will make some corrections.

I heard from Wilson Mao that they had made it asymmetrical to look more like the real wall.

Honestly, I can't know from my audio record if Jeff said "symmetrical" or "asymmetrical". I assumed that it was symmetrical since I had not found it asymmetrical at all­.

These were cakes of comets: rockets are a type of self-propelled firework with a stick for stabilisation.

I tought they were cakes of comets. However, Paul Csukassy talked me about the large number of cakes of rockets in this show, so it led me to some confusion.

Fred

Just got back from montreal a few hours ago. I was able to see Hong Kong, and USA from La Ronde.

My sort of review of hong kong...

I thought it was a pretty good show. The music was cool and interesting. It was perfectly synchronized.

The problems I had with the show was that many of the shells were repetative. Was there a discount on infinity/number 8 shells? Man, I saw way too many of those. The other thing was, there was just no "WOW" factor. I watched it, thought it was really good, but I walked away un-amazed. I'm not even sure what was missing, but it was just missing something.