But a computer-animated backdrop showing a angel flying down to Earth to rescue a dancer portraying a Falun Gong meditator being beaten senseless by Communist goons, together with a song proclaiming, "The Falun Gong is good!"?

OK, we admit it: that, we've never seen before.

After the jump: how the NTDTV Chinese New Year Spectacular has nothing to do with/all to do with the Falun Gong, the ubiquity of sequins throughout 5000 years of Chinese cultural history, plus -- pictures galore!

[If you want to read more about this, check out M.C- and SFMike's director's cut versions of this post on their respective home blogs! Their version has many more pictures and an expanded version of this text (which we couldn't fit in here), along with some commentary tracks. Thanks for covering it for SFist, guys!]

Guest review by M.C- of The Standing Room, with pictures by Civic Center's SFMike. N.B.: No one reviewing this concert, and no one posting the review of this concert has any affiliation with either Falun Gong or the People's Republic of China.