It just goes to show that great music can transform any genre. Brilliant work.

wow, i just found this on stumble, no wonder it has so many votes :/

This should really be called "Smoke on the Biwa",
because the musicians are Japanese, not Chinese.

Classic baby....Classic

Lol I stumbled this too...that's awesome x3

How the -hell- does this video have so many votes? Does the site really have so many visitors? Like... 10 people actually post, though. :O

I think it's time to revoke the anonymous voting.

Someone must have linked it to a big site. You'd think a few of these 800 would make an account and post a comment.

Yeah, 800 votes in 3 days kind of throws off our video voting democracy, so I've disabled the ability to vote anonymously now.

If you look at the comments, you can see that two people *did* make accounts and comment ;)

"stuckfootage says: This should really be called 'Smoke on the Biwa', because the musicians are Japanese, not Chinese."

Well, yeah, except that they're singing "Smoke on the Yangtze", listen to the chorus. Who are you to tell them what they should sing :P

Amazing! Does anyone know anything about the orchestra or the subtitle translation?

Thats so awesome. i found this on stumble, that seriously rocks my world. haha

This is terrific. When Deep Purple did their concert in Tokyo back in the early '70's they were a huge hit...the Japanese love Deep Purple. I remember because I was there at the time in the Navy.

I was sent this by a friend who loved it and knew I would too. Its fantastic. Love it !!

The shamisen is a 3-string lute. It is believed to be a variant of the Okinawan sanshin. The length of the shamisen varies from 1.1 to 1.4 meters. It first became popular in the pleasure districts during the Edo Period (1600~1868)

Wow, far out, man----like I would have said the first time I heard Smoke on the Water! That was really enjoyable.

I registered to vote for this video. I don't know what the winner gets but I think you're being unfair to whoever posted this. I read that this vid had 800 votes but now I'm number 12? Apparently you wiped out 800 votes and made this guy start over. Did you do that to everyone else in the contest? Do their voters have to sign up to vote or can anyone vote on theirs? They had the same opportunity this person did to get linked to a major site and passed around. Face it this vid kicks butt. This person should be declared the winner!

Howdy stranger. The 800 votes that were erased were anonymous votes (votes from people who didn't have accounts), and it wasn't just this video, it was done site-wide.

PS: The prize for the video with the most votes is a gigantic hug.

The Japanese are a bizzare culture.. but cool..

I also stumbled on this video, pretty funny

Love it. Good effort.

This would make an awesome theme song for a new James Bond movie!

I most definately like this vidio......its ....grrrrrrrrreat!!!

Ritchie Blackmore, eat your heart out. This beats the Kronos Quartet covering Purple Haze. Can't wait for the Boys are Back in Town cover.

Well i still prefer the original done by deep purple but i was sent this link by my dad and all i can say is awsome he was speechless i registered just so i could vote for this video guys it pwns so bad i love it

also there was a comment about it being smoke on the yangtze instead of Biwa as they are japanese playing japanese instruments but has it occured to you that they might be singing in chinese as there are japanese subtitles. i dont speak either language so i could be wrong but it just seems strange to me that if they were singing in japanese why would there be japanese subtitles. In which case if they are singing in chinese they would be well within their rights to sing a chinese version instead of japanese.

This kind of thing happens more often "over there", right?

This is wonderful! Truly a great way to connect the music of cultures!

The lyrics are about a bunch of firefighters coming home at night and walking by Lake Biwa. There they see a traveling theatre troupe from Tokyo (Edo) putting on a show. As the firefighters stop by to watch, the set catches fire, at which point they spring into action. Contrary to what was suggested above, they are singing in Japanese, and they don't mention the Yangtze river at all :).

I remember this song as a teenager and believe me this has got to be one of the best versions i have ever heard! Come on! This is unbelievable! Rock on!

I agree with Silver Wolf, I registered just to vote on this song. Who cares if it's Chinese or Jap, it shows how other cultures can dig ours! AMEN!

I'm a Deep Purple Fan for a long time and also a guitar player for he same amount of time. Being able to play Smoke On The Water is way too much fun. This makes the video really fun! What a great job they did of combining an orchestration of this rock icon.

Simply superb!!! I watched it over and over again as it was fantastically done!

What strings did that guy use wow !!!

Loved the clip, seen it ten times now. Pretty sure it's Chinese though.

Wow this is pretty awesome!!
Hi everyone I'm new here so, yeah nice to be here!

Nicely done

I'm really impressed ! Found this site stumbling, Me So Happy !

f-in sweet all i can say

I just love this!

Love this! I'm a Stumbler-inner, too, and had to create an account just to give this a thumbs up!!

"...Angular banjoes sound good to me..."

Impressive!

Oh, those silly asians and their silly clasical music.

Very unexpected. Friend sent it to me!

Still good!

Am I the only person who finds this video stupid and unamazing? I think the Duke Nukem Chat Prank video should be on top. No me gusta.

If this is stupid and unamazing, then I wonder what words would be terrible enough to describe the Duke Nukem Chat Prank video.

Ok, I signed up so i could comment. I know this came out about 6 mos ago but a friend just sent it to me and I've sent it on to a bunch of others. This is so wicked. I love it.

HEY NOW!
ALL I CAN SAY IS BURN BABY BURN!
ZED LIKES!

FabUlous..........
Love this!!!!!

I can't find anywhere the name of this orchestra or the ocaission of its playing. Anyone?

This was pretty good, but i dont think it deserves the number 1 spot.

Duke Nukem wouldn't deserve terrible words. It's probably one of the most famous and funny videos on the intarnetz.

The title is a misnomer, as pointed out by a couple others: this is a Japanese production, not a Chinese one. The singers are singing in Japanese and it does match the subtitles. Regarding Silver Wolf's point: it is not unusual to see subtitles provided on Japanese music videos (even for rock and pop). Aside from the orchestra, the instruments played are Japanese. They are wearing kimonos with hakama "culottes" - standard traditional wear in Japan to the current day.

Jeeze this has alot of votes, and comments o.0
hmmmm... not my favorite.

"This kind of thing happens more often "over there", right?"-Wheelnut
ROFLCOPTERS

Chinpindo, what are they saying? Are they singing the lyrics to Smoke on the Water?

Hi Dutch,
The Japanese version has a text which is completely unrelated to the original, other than that it was about a fire that happened near a big lake.
The following link contains the lyrics in Japanese with a full (and quite good) English interpretation, as well as the lyrics of the original:
http://www.chopstork.com/blog/2008/02/

Also wanted to mention that if you listen closely you can hear the (presumably Japanese) audience chuckling at the beginning - they definitely had heard the original! FWIW, most of the Japanese reviews I read on this (on other sites) were in awe of this piece.

Thanks so much for your reply and the link to the translation. I love this little movie and have posted the link elsewhere to raves as well. I like best the singer who seems to "yell"! LOL Thanks again.

NP. That dude rocks! Love the stoicism.

Pretty cool.

though not as good as duke nukem,it still has my vote and lurks my favortes,just for its pure............catchyness?

Ha, that was the first song i learned on my guitar.

Wow the japs are awesome.

Sounds great..... all though I didn't like the vocals.

Nice.

darn nice movie

They are not japs -.-

Chinese. hence the Yangtze

pretty cool

awesome.

incredible, they should do ironman

The word just sounds like Yangtze. The song's about Edo (old Tokyo) firefighters coming off the night shift. chinpindo, below, has a link to a translation by someone's mother who's Japanese.

loved it.

lol the singing but kwl music =)

you know i dont care weather it is chinese or japanese (most likely japenese, the subtitles match the singing) all i can say is that it is amazing that a group of people would come up with such amazing ways to change music, with diferent combinations of sounds. this clip definatly should be no one of all time!!

kind of ok

I think I just pissed myself... from awesomeness...

Hot.

Its ok

I always wanted to hear a different culture cover and it's pretty good.
Also they look japanese.

OMGTHISISSOAWESOMEIJUSTJIZZEDMYPANTS!!!
(CAPSLOCKISCRUISECONTROLFORCOOL)

this is amazing

WOO! I was the 100th vote for this video!

Congratz.

What does it say about us that this is the number one video?