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.
