Thirty-six years after flying high in the 1980s original, Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel to the adventure-thriller film in which Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer fight baddies for the US Navy, is breaking box office records in America.
Besides spectacular dogfights with fighter jets, it is getting praise for another reason. When a trailer for the film was released in 2019, Taiwanese and Japanese flags were removed from Cruise’s bomber jacket – appeasing Beijing (which claims Taiwan and disapproves of Japan) but upsetting Americans.
But when Paramount released the film late last month, it had reinstated the flags. Americans and Taiwanese cheered. Some critics claimed this was evidence Hollywood was finally standing up to China.
