Performers take the stage with a huge mechanical dragon for the How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular. Photo: Courtesy of t3.com.cn

Do you still remember the exciting scenes of flying dragons fighting with Vikings in the 2010 film How to Train Your Dragon? That year, this animated blockbuster even managed to beat the North American box office record of extremely popular film Kung Fu Panda, while also earning a total $490 million globally. The lifelike 3D models used in the film caused audiences the world over to fall in love with the movie's flying dragons.

Now, these exciting scenes from the film will become a reality right before the eyes of audiences in China when the How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular comes to the capital this summer.

Co-produced by DreamWorks Studios and Australian animation technology icon Global Creatures, the live show version of the animated film combines many different types of stage magic including giant mechanical puppets, 3D projections, aerial acrobatics as well as smoke and fire effects. The stadium show is expected to premier in China on May 30 at a newly built theater adjacent to the Bird's Nest in Beijing.

If you're already interested in this "live spectacular," you're probably already familiar with the story from the movie. Taking place in a small Viking village that has a tradition of fighting and killing dragons, a young Viking boy named Hiccup aspires to become a dragon slayer. However, after he captures his first dragon, he soon befriends the beast instead of killing it.

It took the live show crew two whole years to create the show's most important characters: 13 different mechanical dragons belonging to nine different "species." The largest dragon, a fire-dragon, weighs nearly five tons and has a wingspan of 15 meters - that's longer than your average bus. To make these creatures seem to fly, complicated and advanced technology - a trade secret that the crew keep to themselves - is used during the performance. 

The crew did say, however, that the entire length of all the cables used to make the dragons soar about the stage reaches a total 560 kilometers; equivalent to the distance between Beijing and Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province. "It took 27 large-scale containers to transport these dragons to China," said Liu Yujia, general manager of the AMJH International Cultural Communication Company - the company is responsible for promoting the show in China.

To make room for these humongous creatures, a new 3,000-seat theater was specially built adjacent to the Bird's Nest for the performance. This new theater is the largest multi-media theater in the world.

Each dragon that appears in the show is controlled by a three-man team: one driving in a cab under the dragon who controls the creature's speed, and two puppeteers in the body to control facial expressions and physical movements.

Over the past two years, the show has been performed in countries like the US and New Zealand. Now that it is coming to China, the producers of the show have plans to get audiences even more involved by building a theme park to go along with the live show. Currently, an 800-square meter park near the Bird's Nest is set to become an entertainment and experience zone to familiarize visitors with the lives of the Vikings in the story as well as the different types of dragons.

Besides these massive flying dragons, another highlight of the show is the 3D projection technology used throughout the performance. An enormous screen - as large as nine standard movie screens together - fills up the background of the stage.  As the story progresses different lively or mysterious scenes are projected on the screen to show the lives of the Vikings and their villages, as well as the beautiful scenery of their homeland's seas, forests, volcanoes and of course dragon lairs.