Controversial Fudan University promotional video taken offline

Screenshots from the videos produced by Fudan University and the University of Tokyo (in the bottom left cornor) shows a similarity. [Photo/Sina Weibo]

A netizen, named "Guanglaowantong", who said he was a Fudan university graduate of the class of 1981, feels "ashamed" after watching the two videos and said, "The two are almost the same in terms of creative idea, framing, character, artistic expression and voice-over style."

Teng Yudong, producer of the questionable video and deputy director of the publicity department of Fudan Universtiy, apologized for the upset caused by the film on Thursday night, thepaper.cn reported.

But he persisted in claiming that the video was an original work which took his production team a month to complete, the report said.

Teng explained that the film was adapted from the real life story of Le Yafei, who graduated from the dynamics department in 2009, and is now one of two female test flight engineers working for China Commercial Aircraft Corp.

His team watched promotional videos from more than 20 universities across the world, and the reference video from the University of Tokyo was one of them, Teng added.

"The team consulted Tokyo University's publicity video in its narrative approach and expression since the shooting began in April, 2015, as the two have a similar theme," said Teng.

"I accept all the criticism and suspicion of our alumni and everyone who cares about Fudan," said Teng, "I feel remorse for the bad influence of the video on our school's image, and I'm sincerely sorry."

A teacher from the University of Tokyo told thepaper.cn that the university just heard of the case and is learning facts from its Beijing office.

She also said that the two universities never discussed the promotional videos and have not exchanged ideas over the case yet.