One secret’s out for next week’s Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, but a big one still remains. South Korean television footage shot at a dress rehearsal this week breached the secrecy surrounding the Beijing Olympic Games’ opening ceremony and offered a first glimpse of the elaborate production.

Spoiler alert: Viewers can expect a dramatic countdown, giant whales, an illuminated globe and performers flying above the audience.

What remains a mystery is how ceremony organisers — led by China’s most famous filmmaker Zhang Yimou — plan to light the Olympic cauldron. The identity of the final torchbearer has been guarded like a state secret and a mock cauldron lighting was not a part of recent rehearsals.

Chinese media reports have speculated that the cauldron will be lit by a fire-breathing dragon or phoenix. Others say there will be five torchbearers who will set ablaze a cauldron shaped like the five interlocked Olympic rings.

Another guess involves basketball star Yao Ming, saying he will hold aloft in his massive hands a child who survived the 7.9 magnitude May earthquake that rattled Sichuan province in May, with the child tipping the torch into the cauldron.

While the ending of the ceremony is anyone’s guess, the footage from South Korean broadcaster SBS offered the first preview of the opening night show.

A Beijing Olympics official said Thursday the report was “disappointing.” Sun Weide, spokesman for Beijing’s Olympic organising committee, would not say whether SBS would be punished, only that officials were “checking into the situation.”

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