We rank this among the best shanzhai videos we've seen. With 500,000 video views in just two days, evidently China's video audiences agree. This is a mash-up of Iron Man, Transformers, Spider Man, The X-men, and just about every comic-book-cum-film you ever watched. The producer hired a laowai narrator and some special effect jocks to put Iron Man into the sequences from Transformers. And all this to make a joke at the expense of poor Zeng Yike, who you've surely heard about by now: She's the arguably androgynous singer-songwriter whose controversial selection as a finalist in the American Idol-like show Chaoji Nvsheng has everyone flapping on at length in indignation or earnest adoration. She's been given the moniker "Brother Zeng," a reference to the decidedly more mannish Super Girl winner from a few years back, Brother Chun, or Li Yuchun. Yawn.

We just couldn’t believe our eyes. At Youku’s Got Talent Night (优酷牛人盛典), a Youku user solved a Rubik’s Cube live, on stage, with his head under a table to keep him from looking. From 2:25 to 3:25 of the video, he solves the thing in only one minute after memorizing each of the six faces. Astonishing.

From BBC: "Interactive technology has brought the Mona Lisa to life -- and Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic 16th Century portrait now speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese. A digital version of the work is the star attraction in a new exhibition of classic artworks recreated in multimedia form in Beijing. Exhibition organiser Wang Hui spent two years preparing the collection. He says it is the first time 3D, holographic and voice recognition technologies have been fused like this. Visitors can also listen to Jesus Christ talking to his disciples and watch him move around the table of The Last Supper, while life-sized replica statues of Roman and Greek gods and goddesses strike provocative poses in a multimedia play."

The uploader of this 94-minute documentary titled it, “If you are younger than 18, no need to watch this. But if you’ve been through Gaokao [college entrance exams], take a look. Documentary: Senior Year (高三).” Thanks to the English subtitles, you can follow the storyline easily. Senior Year was produced by Zhou Hao in 2005. With a class president from a poor village, parents who have been farming for decades, and high school students from different families fighting for the same goal in life, the documentary recorded the last year of a class in No. 1 High School of Wuping, Fujian Province.

With 4,000 thumbs up and 15,700 thumbs down, you know how Chinese students feel about this particular type of principal. Every summer, incoming freshmen in Chinese colleges face a horrible ordeal called "military training" (军训). After two weeks of living hell, they demonstrate their new-found military skills to the principal, shouting slogans like "we will contribute to our motherland" as a response to the principal's "you're great, students".

In China, there’s an existing “national standard” for students’ recess exercises. However, some schools opt do develop their own standards. This video features the local version from Ningxiang No.4 High School in South China’s Hunan province. We’re pretty sure that these doubtlessly healthful calisthenics are actually intended either as training for playing Wii Sports, or for getting cast in the Chinese re-make of “Planet of the Apes.” Can’t get enough of these charming exercises? Check out another great video uploaded 8 months ago on Youku - a high school boy elected by Youku users as “The Lord of Recess Exercises”.

This China Mobile ad takes a page straight out of Tom Doctoroff’s China marketing playbook Billions: Sure, it’s pretty maudlin, but it appeals directly to a couple of key things, like the Confucian value of filial piety, the aspirational success story of the country girl made good in the big city, and of course the chasm-of-a-generation-gap that most young urban Chinese have grown so familiar with through the last quarter-century of reform & opening — we all recognize the tech-dependent youngster and her highly traditional parent. “Aiya!,” sighs the old woman. “You can’t live without your mobile phone?” “It’s not that I can’t be without my mobile,” answers her daughter, “It’s that I can’t be without you.” Awwww! Just hits you right there, doesn’t it?

This seed ad from Hyundai — they make little effort to disguise its intention — is part public service announcement, with a list of driving no-nos, and part plug for the Elantra. It’s been viewed about a half-million times in the 24 hours since it was posted, with the overwhelming majority of votes going thumbs-up, so I’m sure Hyundai’s been pretty happy about it. No need to explain what’s happening in this highly visual advert, but I’m guessing something like this wouldn’t fly in the U.S. or elsewhere in the developed West, where feminist sensibilities would almost certainly be offended. We have your stereotypically dizzy good-looking female driver who makes about every mistake in the book during a routine traffic stop: not wearing her seat belt, wearing high heels while driving, forgetting to put her parking brake on, all that.