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It's a little like walking into a carnival sideshow. At the entrance to the new "What About China?" exhibit at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Feng Mengbo's life-size video game invites visitors to jump or stomp on a plastic mat; sensors underneath connect to a huge monitor where guns go off and gore flies. Beyond, a triumphal arch of polystyrene take-out food cartons leads to a vast gallery filled with dozens of movie and video screens, paintings, photographs, sculptures, installations and other objets d'art — a swirling kaleidoscope of color and sound.

Anticipating by six months France's 2004 cultural "Year of China," the exhibit offers an overview of contemporary Chinese art, with nearly 100 works by 50 artists, ages 28 to 48, along with a spectacular 80-sq-m scale model of Beijing and a fascinating French collection of Maoist kitsch. While there's nothing truly groundbreaking in sight, this officially sanctioned show leaves no doubt about how far mainstream Chinese art has come since the days of the Cultural Revolution, and provides vivid proof that Chinese artists now have the right to be just as zany as their Western counterparts.

Among the show's best offerings are short films and clips from full-length productions by filmmakers like Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke. But like most contemporary shows, video is the dominant medium here. Among other endless loops, visitors can watch Zhang Peili's triptych featuring tight close-ups of a man cutting food on a plate and audibly chewing it. In Cui Xiuwen's three-hour Metro No. 2, a woman on a Beijing subway peels bits of skin off her lips as other passengers come and go. For more excitement, there's Yang Zhenzhong's 922 Grains of Rice, in which a rooster and a hen peck away at 922 grains of rice while male and female voices tally his and her scores.

Best of the lot is Yang Fudong's 13-minute Backyard, Hey, Sun is Rising, following the irresistibly silly antics of four bald men brandishing sabers as they parade through city streets and homes. Yang seems inspired by Mack Sennett, Monty Python and the Beatles in A Hard Day's Night.

There are relatively few paintings or drawings on show. Liu Xiaodong paints scenes of daily life with thick, vigorous brush strokes in a Westernized style he calls "cynical realism"; his Through the Ages Heroes Have Come From the Young depicts a gritty street corner with two young men facing a group of three young women on bikes, all five dressed in school-uniform blue suits with white shirts and red ties.

Photographer Weng Peijun takes a hard look at modern urban China in his On the Wall series, in which a schoolgirl sits astride walls facing the cold skyscrapers of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities. Comment on the brash new consumerist society sprouts up in Beijing artist Song Dong's Edible Bonsais, miniature landscapes of ham hock mountains, prosciutto hills and broccoli-flower trees.

"What About China?" doesn't pretend to be comprehensive — it doesn't include unofficial artists or those from the worldwide diaspora — but it does provide an introductory look at some of the creative instincts within the awakening giant. Thanks to its playful presentation by designer Laurence Fontaine, it's also a lot of fun.

The works are carefully planned on a grid, then executed by assistants. But though their genesis sounds cerebral, their impact is direct and visceral. They come right out and grab you — and you find you can't look away.

• JUDY FAYARD | Paris
• The Pompidou Centre presents a feast from the east