As part of its ongoing expansion, has the People's Liberation Army signed up Goose and Maverick? Chinese bloggers are accusing state broadcaster CCTV of using repurposed footage from the 1986 film Top Gun for a story on a recent air force drill. "Ministry of Tofu" explains

In the newscast, the way a target was hit by the air-to-air missile fired by a J-10 fighter aircraft and exploded looks almost identical to a cinema scene from the Hollywood film Top Gun.

A net user who went by the name “??” (Liu Yi) pointed out that the jet that the J-10 “hit” is an F-5, a US fighter jet. In Top Gun, what the leading actor Tom Cruise pilots an F-14 to bring down is exactly an F-5. Looking at the screenshots juxtaposition, one cannot fail to find that even flame, smoke and the way the splinters fly look the same.

Assuming the above screen shots are genuine, the rip-off seems pretty clear. In related news, CCTV recently aired footage of the Chinese Olympic volleyball team at their secret training facility.  

(Via Josh Kucera and Josh Chin on Twitter)

EXPLORE:CHINA
 

GALEN WRIGHT

11:15 PM ET

January 27, 2011

Did Iran beat them to

Did Iran beat them to it?

Check out 13:50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTbnLbojCzE

 

RCHARDING

11:37 AM ET

January 28, 2011

Not necessarily

Iran had F-14 Tomcats from pre-Revolutionary times. It could be legit.

 

MITHLONDIR

1:13 PM ET

January 28, 2011

Those are definitely scenes

Those are definitely scenes ripped right from the film!

 

GRANT

12:04 PM ET

January 28, 2011

Assuming this is true one

Assuming this is true one might want to pass along a message to the PLA. If you're going to make a fake, don't make it from a fairly well known movie.

 

JAKESTER2K

12:39 PM ET

January 31, 2011

Re: Assuming this is true one

You're also assuming that: the PLA knows this is a well-known movie; the PLA doesn't think the movie is too old to matter; and that the PLA had any idea anyone would care....

 

WERDERJIM

5:17 PM ET

January 28, 2011

It looks like China's ego is

It looks like China's ego is writing checks its military can't cash

 

MR FRED

3:18 AM ET

January 29, 2011

Caught?

Well it does look very similar, but would China really risk the embarrassment of being caught passing off Tom Cruise as one of their own ace's? I know from experience that other countries show this footage to pilots, but for inspiration not education purposes.

 

FLHIPPY

2:40 PM ET

January 31, 2011

This proves it!

this just goes to proove that the movie industry has time machines which they use to leap forward into time and steal chinese millitary footage and use it in a movie 26 years before it ever happened!

 

MARTIAN150

3:42 PM ET

January 31, 2011

Top Gun at CCTV

Oh, come on. There are fans of Top Gun at CCTV. A maverick employee was overcome by "that loving feeling."

 

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