Film Name: 长空之王 / Born to Fly
To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive before I went to watch Born to Fly. Although the subject matter of the film is innovative and the production is excellent, it has a lot of difficulties, both explicit and implicit, and at the same time, it has to be subjected to the strictest scrutiny by the most “demanding” group of viewers. Fortunately, the film, like its protagonists, withstood the pressure, and the final results are combustible, hard-hitting, and bloodthirsty.
Born to Fly” pays tribute to this group of “dancers on the tip of the knife”, in which there are various types of fighter aircraft in turn and soaring in the sky, but also test pilots of the valiant, efforts, suffering and growth, but also aviation technology and national defence construction of a hundred feet to further the underlying and the atmosphere. Personally, I feel that the film did the best place, should be the character story angle of choice and position, relative to similar films and new and good-looking, not to mention that it also accurately explains the “success does not have to be in me, success must have me” spirit of the true meaning.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
What’s so great about Born to Fly? The first and most intuitive indicator is to see the planes. I’m not a military fan, but I can see that the film features many different types of air force planes. According to the introduction of a knowledgeable expert, the planes featured in the film include the KJ2000, the J20, the J11, the J16, the J10C, the Winged Dragon drone, and so on, which is an all-star line-up of the Chinese air force.
These planes not only have to be photographed (in fact, it is not easy to achieve this), but also have to be photographed beautifully – the film, through a variety of forms, find ways to help these national important machines have enough styling, including, but not limited to, close-up moving images of close-ups, looking towards the tarmac group of aircraft in the distance, flying in the air when the elegant display, extreme conditions of testing, etc. The film also features as many supporting elements as possible. The film also works on supporting elements as much as possible, such as lighting, colour grading, sound effects, camera angles …… It can be said that Born to Fly is certainly over the top when it comes to the basic audio-visual experience. Of course, many viewers are more concerned about the performance of the action scenes, to which I can only say “absolutely full”. The film’s flight scenes are very rich in type, the beginning and the end of the two quasi-air battles on the elements of the full, third-generation aircraft vs. fourth-generation aircraft, air entanglement, supersonic flight, sonic boom effects, etc., and the middle of the scene of several test flights of the fighter aircraft is also full of details, Cobra manoeuvres, falling leaves, flight envelope, air stop, stalled tailspin and change out of the one not to fall, even if I’m not a fan of the military, simply look at the fun can also look at! Even if I’m not a military fan, I can still enjoy watching it even if I’m just looking at the action.
In addition, real air force test pilots have already intervened in the script stage to guide the scene, in addition to teaching the actors the basic operation, will also talk about some of the feelings of test flights, so the film in all aspects of the degree of realism are guaranteed. From the perspective of a commercial blockbuster, Born to Fly is enough to make people enjoy watching it with so many “aircraft shows”, but it is much more than a simple film. Before watching the film, I didn’t expect much from the story, as this kind of work has a lot of limitations in terms of plot and characters, so it’s hard to have a huge space to play with, and the flow of the story tends to be more or less the same, and the film opened up quite a long time after that, just as I had expected. Lei Yu is a smart, bold, aggressive and excellent pilots, by the captain Zhang Ting dug to the test flight team to participate in the training test, where he ran into his own evenly matched Deng Fang, he not only want to be the last to pass the test of the one of the seven, but also with Deng Fang and then compete with the courage to fight for the first.
Casting an exceptional genius with pride as the protagonist is a universal approach, and when the protagonist is reborn in Nirvana after a blow, he will sooner or later become the standard “No.1”, which is certainly not wrong. But not long after, all sorts of “anti-routine” appeared one after another: Lei Yu became a test pilot with the second place; after he lost the test flight data and jumped out of a parachute, he didn’t intend to learn from his shame, but applied for transfer back to the original unit, and directly became a “deserter”; and then he was kept by Zhang Ting! Then he was retained by Zhang Ting, and did not become the chief test pilot until the end. …… When we thought that this is another inspirational story of “complacent young people coming into their own”, Born to Fly tells the story of a group of heroes in a more profound and atmospheric manner. heroes. I was deeply impressed by one of Zhang Ting’s lines, which was to the effect that the first generation of test pilots in China were “courageous”, starting everything from scratch, and had to fight for their lives to exchange data, while their generation (the second generation) of test pilots were “technical”, with more experience and skills, but he looked forward to the new generation more. He is looking forward to the new generation.
Because the third generation test pilots are “experts”, they are engineers and designers who can fly. During the period of waiting for “leaving the team”, Lei Yu gradually showed his idea and talent of technical research and development (there were signs when his theoretical knowledge was better than Deng Fang’s), with the refinement of basic affairs such as loading parachutes and the research outside the normal training, Lei Yu’s research and development for the modification of the aircraft design continued to be in-depth, and ultimately solved the problem of “testing the limits while preserving the aircraft”. The film doesn’t rely on Lei Yu’s “test the limits while preserving the aircraft”. The film does not rely on Lei Yu’s “bully” persona as a plus point, to bend the road to become the first – in fact, the test pilots in the same period of the strongest clinical ability is Deng Fang, he is the undisputed chief – but through the Lei Yu from the competition to the first to the second, the film is the most important part of the film. -Rather, it is through Lei Yu’s change from competing to not competing that the true spirit of the test pilots is demonstrated. Personal honour and disgrace are not important, but test flight testing is. They want to prove to everyone that we can build the best new fighter by ourselves.
In fact, this generation of engineering-minded test pilots has both the courage and skill of their predecessors, and only progress that is stronger than one generation can be worthy of the blood, tears and glory that the military has paid for from generation to generation. It’s worth noting that Born to Fly’s emotional drama is done with great restraint and to the point, given its small length and proportion. Take Lei Yu’s love line as an example, Lei Yu and his parents’ rivalry is just two scenes, but very clearly expresses the contradiction between the two sides that is difficult to reconcile, the mother is worried about her son’s life and safety, the father feels that the gap between China’s self-developed technology and that of foreign countries is too big, they all hope that their son can stop flying and leave the army, but Lei Yu, who is devoted to his career as a test pilot, politely refused his parents’ goodwill. This reminds me of the argument of some elders that “if you raise a child too well, he/she will be the country’s instead of your own”, and “Born to Fly” is a contemporary version of “loyalty and filial piety are difficult to reconcile” in just two or three lines.
Another example is Lei Yu and Shen natural love for men and women, a few contacts can be seen that the two of them are interested in each other, but the two have not been revealed, the closest to breaking the windowpaper once, is Shen natural withdrew the decision to transfer to the south, told Lei Yu’s reason is that you can not be a deserter in the critical period of time – of course this is the right thing to do, put the individual personal love Of course, this is right. To put personal feelings under collective ideals, or to put them in the same direction and work together, this is a romantic feeling that only revolutionary couples have. What impresses me most is the exchange of words between Lei Yu and Deng Fang, especially when Lei Yu says that Deng Fang’s father who sacrificed his life is a hero, and Deng Fang bluntly says, “The honour of a hero is too heavy”, and then goes on to say, “I want to try out the best aircraft, so that the frontline fighters can safely return home and grow up together with their kids. I want to test the best aircraft so that the frontline fighters can return home safely and grow up with their children.” Recalling that Lei Yu’s reason for joining the pilot team was to “fight back the invading enemy”, Deng Fang’s ideal undoubtedly further sublimates the theme of Born to Fly: of course, fallen soldiers are honourable, but if we can, we don’t want to see more martyrs as heroes; the purpose of research and development of equipment and national defence is not only to fight back against the enemy but also to protect our brothers and sisters, and to make our country a better place to live. But if we can, we don’t want more heroes and martyrs.
There are some spirits and feelings that have actually been engraved in our bones for a long time, and even a glimpse of them in “Born to Fly” is enough to make people feel emotional and bring tears to their eyes.
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