It wouldn't have been military. There are quite a few helicopters in China that do media work. I have done it myself on occasions and the big advantage is that can you ask for a clearance from ATC and if they give it to you you are fireproof. Down to thirty metres in Shezhen? Great fun. You can look at your reflection in the tenth floor of an eighty floor office glasshouse quite legally. In Wenzhou I had a TV crew doing a railway station opening. They bigwigs were in convoy in the right hand carriageway and we were filming them at twenty-five feet in the other one with me watching out for overhead traffic lights just in case I got a red and had to stop.
Legalised hooliganism, basically.