Recent videos depicting national heroes in alternate histories and circumstances have some people worried that their reputations are being distorted and tampered with on the Internet, according to a report in the Information Time August 4.

Lei Feng, a soldier who is revered as moral icon for his work in helping others died in an accident in 1962. In a script written by Deng Jianguo, Lei carries on a love affair with a woman three years his senior. Former comrades from Lei's barrack stopped the film from being made, insisting that the woman and Lei were only friends.

Pan Dongzi was a boy when he saw his mother killed by Japanese soldiers and dedicated his life to avenging her death. In a short video created by netizen Hu Daoge using borrowed footage from the classic movie Shining Red Stars, Pan is portrayed as the son of a real estate tycoon and dreams of becoming a pop star.

Bayi Film Production Factory, which was responsible for the film Shining Red Stars that depicts Pan's story has denounced the net distortion of the hero who grew up in tough conditions and made great contributions to safeguarding the motherland.

Red Classics refer to movies and television plays telling the stories of national heroes defending China against Japanese invaders, protecting people during the revolutionary period and traditional Chinese virtues of struggling against hard conditions for a bright future.

They were produced decades ago when new China had just been founded and people needed spiritual stimulation.

E gao, or taking films, photos out of context or changing them completely for comedic value, has been a common pastime among Chinese web users for years, before war heroes became the objects.

Educational experts are concerned this phenomenon may confuse young people who haven't lived through hard times about right and wrong.

"Everything is being made fun of, even the most serious blood-shedding national wars," the vice director of the literature department at a prestigious university said. "What is the bottom line of e gao?"

A web user named Ri Chu Jiang Hua posted that "a healthy society needs role models, and now it's time for every society member to protect them from being smeared, " on an Internet bulletin board.