China plotting grand opening

Beijing's Olympic organisers are ploughing through nearly 400 plans for the 2008 Games' opening and closing ceremonies and will announce their top pick next month.

Since launching a global search for ceremony schemes in March, the 2008 organising committee had received 395, only 10 of which came from outside China, Xinhua news agency said without naming any names.

Xinhua reported in July that Chinese film directors Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige were submitting ceremony proposals and would compete with foreign plans from the likes of American maestro Steven Spielberg.

The basic concepts for the ceremonies and the production team in charge would be announced in September, but the details would stay under wraps until the Games start on August 8, 2008.

Beijing have a tough act to follow.

The opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics, a three-hour pageant reviewing Greek civilisation, proved a smash hit with viewers all over the world and kicked off a very successful Games.

But China has plenty of practice running massive, people-filled spectaculars.

For the celebration of the country's 50th anniversary in 1999, 100,000 children packed Tiananmen Square and formed two huge yellow characters that meant "National Day" and hundreds of thousands more civilians took part in a parade.