The Chinese Communist Party greenlit the debut of Born to Fly, a Chinese propaganda version of Top Gun, in theaters on Friday in anticipation of one of the biggest box office weekends of the year.
China, like communist countries around the world, observes May 1 as “International Workers’ Day,” a holiday that celebrates the bloody legacy of Marxism. Communist ideology has resulted in at least 110 million killings in its brief history, a disproportionate number of which occurred in China under late dictator Mao Zedong.
Rather than honor the dead, China encourages its citizens to use the May Day weekend to watch communist propaganda films, buoying the growing Chinese film industry by supporting “patriotic” films that promote Beijing’s agenda. China’s promotion of homemade propaganda films has all but elbowed Hollywood out of the Chinese market, which the regime tightly controls, allowing only a handful of foreign movies in Chinese cinemas per year.
The Chinese government enthusiastically encourages “red tourism” – travel to sites considered holy in Chinese communist history – during the May Day holiday.
Last May, Beijing canceled festivities as a result of its “zero-Covid” policy, which relied heavily on city-wide lockdowns and the imprisonment of thousands in quarantine camps. The Chinese government largely lifted most “zero-Covid” restrictions in December after a wave of protests against the regime hit nearly every major city. The Chinese film industry notably shelved “patriotic” propaganda movies during the first major box office weekend of the year, the Lunar New Year holiday in late January.
Born to Fly as the most important title launching this weekend – a showcase of the allegedly significant advances the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made in aerial combat that debuts several new fighter jet models. The plot of the film has been described as “the country’s most daring and promising young fighter pilot takes part in a top-secret testing program for the military’s most advanced fighter jets” – essentially identical to the 1980s American blockbuster hit Top Gun and its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, which ruled box offices around the world last year.
“Fighter jets roar triumphantly as they soar through the sky during the action film Born To Fly. The sonic boom from these aircraft thundering through your chest is likely take your breath away,” the government propaganda outlet Global Times recounted breathlessly on Friday.
“Featuring China’s cutting-edge fighter jets such as the J-20 and J-16, and starring Wang Yibo and other top-notch actors, this is the first Chinese film about test pilots in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force,” the state newspaper continued, praising the actors for having “effortlessly used technical jargon” and producers for the allegedly “stunning visual effects” in the movie.”
The Global Times addressed the obvious parallels between Born to Fly and Top Gun: Maverick, trashing the latter for allegedly having a weak plot.
“Undoubtedly, as a film in the ‘air combat’ genre, Born To Fly has been called China’s answer to US blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, but has been negatively portrayed in Western media reporting,” the state newspaper noted. “Compared to the commercially successful popcorn movie whose plot does not stand up to scrutiny, Born To Fly is not inferior, and may even become a new benchmark for similar films in China.”
The newspaper insisted that Born to Fly‘s plot is different from the Top Gun franchise because it emphasizes “the spiritual inheritance present among China’s past and present Air Force generations,” which makes it more “humanistic.”
Top Gun: Maverick focuses primarily on the relationship between the eponymous main character and his late best friend’s son, picking up the plot of the original film nearly four decades later.
The Tom Cruise-led film hit theaters last May, making Born to Fly a significantly delayed response to the American blockbuster. Producers intended to release the film in October, for the third of China’s top three movie launch weekends – the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, or “Golden Week” – but shelved the movie abruptly, after it had made about $3.6 million in presale tickets. Without Born to Fly, the Chinese box office had no action films in rotation for the major weekend, resulting in a 70-percent drop in ticket sales. The top movie the first weekend of October last year was Home Coming, a movie showcasing the alleged greatness of Chinese communist diplomacy.
At the time, Born to Fly producers issued a statement saying they would delay the film’s release to “present better production effects.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, producers shelved the film after watching Top Gun: Maverick, and fearing that their feature was “far inferior” and would embarrass China.
“Some in China who have seen Born to Fly have said that the movie disappointed the Chinese air force because of both its overall perceived shabbiness,” the Hollywood Reporter relayed in December, “and its mistaken reference to China’s proudly homemade J-20 jet as a “fourth-generation” stealth fighter, rather than, correctly, a more advanced, fifth-generation plane of its kind.”
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