The real voice behind the tiny, pigtailed girl in the red dress who wowed 91,000 spectators at the National Stadium on opening night really belonged to 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. Her looks apparently failed the cuteness test with officials organizing the ceremony, but Chen said her voice was judged the most beautiful.

Video (and more accusations of Olympic fakery) after the jump:

THR's James Hibberd provides a helpful roundup of allegations, including complaints about NBC's misuse of the "Live" stamp and charges that a beautiful, aerial shot of fireworks was computer-generated, a fact that that commentators danced around:

Accusation: That viewers were misled by the use of CGI fireworks during a sweeping helicopter shot leading up to Bird's Nest National Stadium. Organizers note the fireworks were there, but the footage was created in advance due to the danger of shooting live from a nearby helicopter.

Hurt by the allegations, NBC and Chinese authorities teamed up to release an ominous statement intended to quash dissent, promising, "If more columnists dare to question the magisterial beauty of our Games, we will have no choice but to pull Olympic coverage in favor of wall-to-wall airings of Can't Stop the Music. Xie xie."

• China Had "Cute" Girl Mime Opening Ceremony After Singer Banned For Crooked Teeth [HuffPo]
• NBC responds to Olympic fakery accusations [THR]

The idea of making a film in which the hero, a Chinese national symbol, is a bit of a slouch just doesn't wash. Which is also something Po isn't particularly good at.

"Both Asia and the West have elite culture, but in China, Confucian forms dominate," said Zhang Nian, a culture critic. "This panda is a flunky who haggles for his own selfish ends."

Chinese film heroes are generally long on perfection and short on foibles. The men are handsome and robust and the women fair and graceful. And they generally don't have Po's willpower problem, eating disorders or tendency to run from danger. ...

Added to the no-no list for Chinese animators is raciness, particularly in a children's movie. Witness Po's joking use of noodle bowls to simulate breasts and his bid to protect his family jewels — known in Chinese as "little brothers" — in the middle of a fight.

And that's the toned-down version — by fired writer Dan Harmon's infamous account, perhaps the 60th or 65th script draft in a process that once included thinly veiled references to co-star Angelina Jolie's "big sister" and featured Po kicking opium cold turkey in a second-act training montage. And then there was the whole unused Sharon Stone subplot... Seriously, China, it could have been so much worse.

• China had to import 'Kung Fu Panda' [LAT]

The comments came a day after China's official Xinhua News Agency named Stone the "public enemy of all mankind"; a government spokesman reacted to her apology with the "hope that as an actress she should contribute to our two peoples' mutual trust, understanding and friendship." And just like that, Basic Instinct 2 disappeared from every video store in Beijing. Apology accepted!

[Photo Credit: AFP]

• Sharon Stone apologizes for remark on China quake [AP]

Everybody wants IN to the Chinese market. This particularly goes for high-end luxury brands, which are slobbering over the prospect of Chinese people—more than a billion of them!—soon having enough money to start buying their products. As the country gains a stronger middle and upper class, Dior and Armani and Chanel and Vuitton and all their friends are counting on a huge new customer base. Politics be damned!

And all the stars who model for, receive freebies from, or endorse all these brands? They're going to have to shut their traps about Tibet. China accepts no dissent on the issue. The Chinese government will happily blacklist any company foolish enough to publicly raise the issue, and no company would ever do such a thing. Nor will they allow their endorsers to. It's as simple as that. Every major company on earth has, thus far, folded in the face of Chinese totalitarianism, because the promise of their untapped customer base is too good to sacrifice for an abstract political cause. The shareholders want profits, not slogans.

So here's a prediction: In the future, the only Hollywood stars to loudly adopt the Tibet issue will be those who are too old or unpopular to land the juiciest luxury endorsements. Or maybe some of them will willingly ditch their endorsements in order to continue arguing for the cause? Ha ha! Yea, we hope so too. Maybe Richard Gere will stick it out.

Think that's cynical? The same thing has already happened in the sports world. NBA superstar Lebron James refused to sign a letter from ten of his own teammates condemning China's business connection to the atrocities in Darfur. Why? Because he has a $100 million contract with Nike, and the Olympics are coming up in Beijing, and Nike wants a big piece, as well as big peace. Most other big name athletes have already fallen in line as well.

Hopefully the Dalai Lama can do without Beverly Hills.

[Photo via Getty]

But even after a recent Chinese crackdown destroyed more than 47 million illegal publications ("including pirated DVD's," according to Variety), an exhausted government spokesman struggled to placate the West:

"In merely 20-odd years it is impossible for China to establish IPR (intellectual property rights) protection awareness similar to that of Western countries," said Yin Xintian, spokesman with the State Intellectual Property Office.

"As the country's economy expands, so does the production scale of each product. Taking all the factors into consideration, it is natural that there will be some piracy," Yin said.

There are fewer pirated DVDs circulating in China these days, though many people prefer to illegally download product or go to Internet cafés.

This sucks for us, who'd naturally planned to download the entire Summer Olympics before they're even broadcast — not just for the flexibility it gives us on vacation dates, but also for the furtive leg-up we'd have in Gawker Media's ultra-competitive Olympic wagering pools. We hope Chinese pirates media minds find a solution that works conveniently for everyone involved.

• China Takes Piracy Steps [Variety]
• Jackie Chan Billboard to Fight Piracy [Variety]