April 2023, director/co-writer Liu Xiaoshi’s Born To Fly soared into U.S. theaters, bringing with it an energy from China that American audiences recognized from the Top Gun series: big attitudes, fast planes, and a desire to be the best there is. Unlike Top Gun, however, the focus is placed on the test pilots, the innovators who develop the technology to defend the skies from invasion and gamble with their lives every time they get in the cockpit to ensure that any loss of life by any pilot is as minimized as possible. Scripted by Liu and Guan Gui (Silence of Smoke), Born To Fly explores a different perspective in military aviation, making for a fresh take on the fighter pilot action drama. Unfortunately, the film as a whole suffers at it follows a predictable path from its thrilling introduction to emotional end.
A scene from BORN TO FLY. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
After an engagement with a foreign stealth fighter goes wrong, pilot Lei Yu (Wang Yibo) is forced to choose between ejecting and saving himself or attempting a landing and saving the plane, too. Opting for the latter, he garners the attention of Commander Zhang (Hu Jun) who recruits him to join the test pilot division where Lei Yu can utilize his skills to help prevent what happen to him happen to others. Except being a test pilot is different than being a soldier in the air service, requiring Lei Yu to learn some hard lessons. But if he can overcome, what he and the rest of the division can accomplish could save countless lives.
The comparison to the Top Gun films is the most obvious as it’s the fighter pilot series most audiences, particularly in America, are going to be most familiar with. This reviewer has a soft-spot for the Iron Eagle films, partially due to Queen, but not all found them as charming or memorable. The point, though, is that while Top Gun (either the original (1986) or Maverick (2022)) might be the first set of films you think of, Born To Fly both *is* and *isn’t* the same in oscillating areas of good and bad. The framework of Born To Fly is so similar to the original Top Gun that I could tell you what the big beats were going to be before they happened. Not before watching the movie, mind you, but once things got set in motion, you could see where Liu and Guan were taking Lei Yu and the rest of the pilots. This leads to reduced tension in the film overall as one can already deduce, perhaps not the specifics of what will happen, but that certain things will happen and, by not being wrong frequently, will easily deduce the trajectory of the narrative as a whole.
Hu Jun as Commander Zhang in BORN TO FLY. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
What saves the film from being a complete uninspired experience is reframing the space that these pilots exist in. Instead of fighter pilots battling it out for supremacy as the best through Top Gun Academy, these starling pilots compete for who’s the best test pilot, which actually requires a completely different mindset to achieve. It’s not about completing a mission and saving the day, but holding a longer view wherein the sacrifices are intentionally made each day in repeated attempts to prevent loss of life. At first, this feels like a strange shift from expectation as one presumes individuals willing to strap themselves into a rocket in order to purposefully defy gravity at extraordinary risk are in possession of great ego, especially as the primary two pilots we follow — Lei Yu and Deng Feng (Yosh Yu) — are very much driven individuals, but the further into the film we travel, we start to see that their drive is a response to a major need to save lives. Their push to be perfect as pilots is to ensure that they can make it so that no pilot in the Chinese Army will perish due to poor technology or testing. That’s an extraordinary burden to bear and one which the film continuously comes back to with either shots of or visits to the in-film test pilot memorial. This gives the whole of the film a greater sense of gravitas and sacrifice, certainly more than one would think from the execution which so clearly borrows from aviation dramas of old for its framework.
Adding to the disappointment is the lack of bonus features with the release. Maybe nothing was cultivated during the making of the film or maybe nothing’s available regionally (Region A vs. Region B, etc.), but it’s frustrating nonetheless as there are elements to the film that would be interesting to learn about. What was the relationship like between the cast? What tools were utilized to create the flight sequences and capture actor performances? Even a brief featurette that touches on these two questions would be better than absolutely nothing. At least the on-disc presentation is visually striking and the sound is clear and clean, so fans of the film will feel like the purchase remains worth the energy.
A scene from BORN TO FLY. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
Though there are certainly elements that make Born To Fly engaging and interesting, mostly coming from Hu Jun (Shadow) who plays Commander Zhang with passion and imp-like energy, there’s too much that distracts or weakens the whole for the film to be little more than a one-and-done experience. It’s not just the somewhat shoddy CG that turns intense dog fights into rubbery-looking digital sequences or the heavy (even by China’s typical standards) nationalism, but the fact that the narrative calls its shots so frequently removes any sense of mystery beyond the precise “how” it’ll happen and lacks any tension of “if” or “when.” Credit where it’s due, at least the film sticks the landing time and again so that the intended emotional propulsion of the film keeps you engaged and wondering what the outcome is going to be. To that end, make sure to stay until the mid-credits are complete.
Born To Fly Special Features:
- Born To Fly trailer
- Three (3) Well Go USA Previews
Available on Blu-ray and DVD March 26th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Well Go USA Born To Fly webpage.
Final Score: 3 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Release, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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