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Why Salman Khan's Tubelight is desperate to repeat Aamir's Dangal box office success in China

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Ananth Krishnan
Ananth KrishnanMay 26, 2017 | 09:44

Why Salman Khan's Tubelight is desperate to repeat Aamir's Dangal box office success in China

The film Dangal, released in China on May 5, has enjoyed a two-week-long reign at the top of the Chinese box office. And it’s been some reign: for the past few days in Beijing, Dangal is all anyone wants to talk about.

It’s perhaps the first time in four decades, since Raj Kapoor’s Awaara, that an Indian film has made such a big impact in China. As of May 25, the film had made an unbelievable Rs 770 crore at the Chinese box office — a record for a non-Hollywood foreign film in China and more than what Dangal earned in India.

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Prior to its release, promoters said they would have considered Rs 200 crore a good return, and Rs 300 crore as exceptional. Dangal has done more than double that.

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Dangal has stormed China.

I’ve been bombarded by questions about Dangal by almost every single Chinese person I’ve met these past few weeks.

“The film resonated with many Chinese parents who had always encouraged their children to work hard and strive for success,” wrote a People’s Daily editor in one column. “But the deeper message of the film is that it praises and encourages the liberation of women. In it, Mahavir Singh Phogat, played by Aamir Khan, does not ask his daughters to follow old conventions, but instead trains them to be independent in a society in which women do not enjoy equal status.”

It’s this message that resonated deeply with China —perhaps the only other society besides India where the film’s themes were so relevant. Aspiring Olympic athletes driven by obsessive parents? Check. Wide societal preference for boys? Check. A tradition of filial piety? Check. And a new, independent generation wrestling (no pun intended) with this tradition? Check.

It was almost as if Dangal was written for China too. In fact, several prominent Chinese directors even bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t made any such film despite grappling with similar issues, and one that was brave enough to not whitewash the problems of prejudice and government apathy towards aspiring athletes.

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Safe to say, one can be sure that China’s government and its biggest state-backed film group certainly wouldn’t have backed Dangal the way they did, if it was the warts of Chinese society and state — rather than India’s — that were on display.

What does the film’s success mean for Bollywood and China? Analysts have perhaps been too hasty to dub Dangal a “game-changer”. From reviews and interviews with moviegoers, what comes across is the unique resonance of the film’s very particular themes. Before Dangal, PK was the highest-grossing film with more than Rs 100 crore, while Dhoom 3, despite the Aamir factor, didn’t do very well. And neither did My Name is Khan nor Fan.

Salman Khan’s Tubelight, according to some reports, is aiming for a wide release in China.

It will certainly be an interesting post-Dangal test case, especially because it’s reportedly set in the backdrop of 1962, a war that China generally prefers to airbrush out of the textbooks, leading one film critic to suggest he would certainly be very surprised if the Chinese authorities, who preside over the most censored movie markets in the world, blessed the film as they did Dangal.

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(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Last updated: May 26, 2017 | 18:32
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