Much to the dismay of China, a Korean journalist snuck into the Bird’s Nest stadium Monday night and filmed a rehearsal of the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games.

As background, the opening ceremonies for the Games have been a huge secret, almost equivalent to military classified information. Leakers have been threatened with seven-year jail terms. China’s most famous filmmaker, Zhang Yimou, put together the three and a half hour show.

So when the two-minute Korean network news spot was posted on YouTube, China jumped to action. First, it leaned on YouTube to block the link. Click here to see what happens when you call up the video. (Please correct me if it's only blocked in China.) Then China ordered domestic video websites to take it down.

That’s the Chinese way: if you have a leak, find out how to make it go away, even if you have to pull out a sledgehammer and drive a stake through its heart.

I saw the video this morning on YouTube before it was taken down, but I’ll excerpt from a Sydney Morning Herald article about what the show contains.

It begins with a countdown and thunderous drums. A giant traditional scroll painting unfurls, revealing a lone rhythmic gymnast.

Other highlights include the projection of larger-than-life whales on a giant screen that appears to run around the entire interior lip of the stadium roof, and dozens of airborne acrobats.

There is also spectacular use of gymnastics in which hundreds of performers synchronise to create moving tableaux. In one scene, thousands of white cubes with people underneath move up and down in waves that suggest the explosive growth of high-rise cities in China.