Before reviewing this movie, It's really important to dig into the diegesis of it creation. I invited you to search around if you want to find more about it, but for those who won't, it's basically more a tool than a movie to prove the chinese people how awesome there air force are. To a reach a ridiculous point where it was MANDATORY for them to go watch Born to Fly at the nearest cinema during there 'Golden Week' vacations. It's a pretty dismal practice for sure but this has nothing to do with the potential quality of the movie, which is globally awful.
Get past the pathetic caricature of americans pilots at the very beginning of the movie which can have been conceptualised by North Korean artists in 1960, you got an avalanche of CGI dog fights. First thing that pop through your head is: was this really made in 2023? Second thing (if you have seen real jet fighters manoeuvres at high speed or just understand the foundation of flying): was it any jet fighter pilot on/off the set to notify the director that all these dog fights scenes are beyond ridiculous and totally unrealistic? Even if, they weren't heard.
But even if you can pass all this, there is something terribly wrong with the script. The main focus during the entire 2 hours is on the fact that they must develop a stealth fighter jet. Ok. So why do you spend all your time talking about improving the engine to reach that goal and not the jet frame?
There is many more things that doesn't work but I won't lose more of your time. To conclude, it try's to mimic some of Top Gun movies but fail miserably and looks like another cheap chinese knock-off of an american formula.
