BEIJING — China’s state-controlled newspapers are overflowing with praise for the lavish Opening Ceremony Olympic organizers staged Friday night, but some Chinese have taken to the Internet to skewer the performance and the film director who oversaw it, Zhang Yimou.

Much of the criticism accused Mr. Zhang of relying too much on technology-intensive special effects, such as enormous image-bearing scrolls and thousand of performers clad in futuristic jumpsuits that lit up, while paying little attention to the achievements and concerns of modern Chinese.

“Zhang Yimou’s idea is to let people all over the world experience the 5000 years of Chinese culture, so he tries to pile the Chinese elements up. The problem of Zhang is that he does not have any sense of modern times and the future,” a prominent Chinese artist and critic, Fang Zhenning, wrote. “He has no idea where the changes of China and what young Chinese are thinking. It’s sad that he wants to let people praise the country’s past. He’s like a pickled vegetable in a crock of Chinese culture.”

Some said the use of mass performances, such that by 2008 drummers, stressed China’s size over its accomplishments. “We all know that Zhang Yimou likes ‘bigness.’ In the Olympics opening ceremony, we saw that he liked ‘big scenes,'” Song Shinan wrote on a Web log, bullog.cn. “Regrettably, these big scenes were empty and spiritless. This is like a mouth with a tongue cut off – it does not matter how wide the mouth is opened because you can only hear some unclear moaning sounds.”

A Google search of 50 Chinese-language blog postings about the Olympics found a significant minority taking a negative stance. The review, conducted for The New York Sun by a local journalist, David Yang, found 21 postings praised the opening, 10 criticized it, and six took a neutral view. The others addressed the issue tangentially or could not be retrieved due to Chinese Government restrictions on accessing certain blog sites.

However, praise came from many quarters. “Fascinating lights, great fireworks,” a journalist for China’s Youth Daily, Tong Dahuan, wrote on a Web log. “Zhang Yimou once again staged a show full of Chinese elements….We’re simply stunned by the ceremony and can only fall for his skill.” Most Western commenters seemed similarly awed.

The show was replete with tributes to ancient Chinese inventions, like movable type and the compass, but the only obvious reference to the 20th Century was the appearance of a couple of flying performers dressed as astronauts. They commemorated China’s space program, which sent its first man into orbit in 2003.

Asked about the paucity of modern references, Mr. Zhang said modern Chinese culture is hard to distinguish from that in the West.

“The symbols of the present day are not easy to capture, unlike in the ancient world, because today we are sort of one big family, we resemble together,” he told a news conference early Saturday, soon after the ceremony concluded. “We dress similarly and the fashion and fads are similar and very close. We are in the age of communication. That is why if you wanted to find something unique in today’s Chinese culture, it will be very difficult because we now become globalized culture.”

The brush-off given to modern Chinese history avoided having to pass judgment on the tragedies of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule, such as millions of deaths from starvation caused by Chairman Mao’s modernization program, the Great Leap Forward. The decision also avoided putting foreign dignitaries in an awkward spot by directly celebrating the party’s successes.

At the news conference Saturday, an organizer of the ceremony suggested divine intervention helped to ward off rain, which would have complicated the ceremony. “The heaven is cooperating and did not rain,” the official, Zhang Heping, said. “I think heaven was also moved by us.”

However, Chinese meteorological officials confirmed over the weekend that more than 1,100 silver iodide shells were fired into the clouds to drain them of moisture before they approached the stadium where the ceremony was under way.