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Almost everything there is to know about the film can be found in its production notes. Directed by Li Chen, who also stars along his real-life girlfriend Fan Bingbing, having the full support of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (Pla), with it being the first time that a film crew was allowed access to their military bases, featuring military experts and trainers as advisers, and with the shooting taking place in in Death Valley, U.S; also known as the “Star Wars Canyon as well as in various parts of China and Kazakhstan, “Sky Hunter” could be nothing but a blockbuster. Add to the aforementioned the presence of Hans Zimmer as producer of the score, Pixomondo being in charge of the CGI, and a script that resembles “Top Gun” a bit too much, and you have almost everything you need to know about the movie Let us take things from the beginning,...

A gifted but maverick (sorry) fighter pilot goes from rogue hotshot to true hero, and gets the girl, in director-star Li Chen’s Sky Hunter, a shameless Top Gun knock-off and a bit of nationalist entertainment from China’s recent wave of ultra-patriotic action adventures — and the first to feature actual Chinese military hardware. Released over the National Day weekend, Sky Hunter barely earned its budget back, and other markets it would, ahem, fly in are a mystery. Opening a full three weeks later in Hong Kong, the film’s brand of gung ho nationalism is likely to be a bitter pill...