Watch These Chinese Students Flawlessly Recreate La La Land's Opening Scene

La La Land, which took home six trophies at the 89th Academy Awards, including Best Original Score and Best Original Song, has inspired a plethora of scene recreations and reinterpretations, but few, if any, are as impressive and fun as this cover of the film’s opening number, “Another Day of Sun.”

While the original scene takes place on a Los Angeles highway, students at the Xiamen Foreign Language School, a secondary and senior high school in Xiamen, Fujian, China, bring the ensemble song to the classroom.

Co-directed by 2016 Xiamen graduates Jiang Ruiyang and Teng Yifei, the tracking shot effortlessly weaves between classrooms and eventually through the school’s courtyard, each student hitting his or her cue without mistakes. The students sing in English, some of the lyrics modified to suit their surroundings, participate in a variety of choreographed dances, and insert an assortment of other activities, like beatboxing, soccer, and playing traditional Chinese instruments.

Watch the magnificent video here:

After the song concludes, it’s revealed that the female student who started the performance had actually fallen asleep in class and that it was all a dream. But once she plugs in her earphones and the film’s soundtrack begins to play, a smile inches across her face, and the credits roll right as she begins to stand up.

While the eight-minute video has yet to hook viewers outside of China, the mini-musical garnered over 7.5 million views on the nation’s social media platform Weibo shortly after its release.

Released in China during Valentine’s Weekend 2017, La La Land pulled in just shy of $36 million at the Chinese box office during an eight-week run.

Check out the original scene below:

About the author

Ryan Kristobak

Music Editor

Hailing from the booming metropolis that is Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Ryan grew up surrounded by Amish farms and performed in a variety of questionable musical acts. After studying journalism at Penn State and working as an editor at the startup blog Onward State, Ryan moved to New York City to work for The Huffington Post as the Music and Entertainment Social Media Editor. When he isn't pouring through new music or managing the artists Angelo Mota and Marathon, he is endlessly quoting "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", "Archer" and "Kroll Show" to anyone that will listen.