Truth behind Dangal smashing a record in China in a week which saw Baahubali
As of the afternoon of May 12, exactly one week after Dangal's release in China, Aamir Khan’s film was sitting pretty at the top of the Chinese box office for the second day running.
In a week where Baahubali 2: The Conclusion was in the headlines for its record-breaking opening weekend in the US, where it brought in $10.4 million (Rs 67 crore), Dangal was, somewhat under the radar, setting records of its own.
By the end of its first weekend in China, Dangal - or “Shuaijiaoba, Baba” (Let’s wrestle, dad!) - had brought in Rs 75 crore. And by the end of its first week, Dangal had crossed a remarkable Rs 200 crore (216 million yuan) at the Chinese box office, a never before feat for an Indian film in any foreign market.
This is all the more remarkable considering there isn’t a large Indian diaspora on the Chinese mainland, unlike in the US or UK, where the Indian community has often driven earnings for Bollywood releases.
Dangal’s China success is certainly pathbreaking. The film was, no doubt, expected to do well. It was helped by perhaps the biggest promotion effort for an Indian film in China.
In April, Aamir, who enjoys a wide following in the country, spent a week travelling around the country. In Beijing, Dangal was screened on the opening day of the Beijing International Film Festival - a rare occurrence for an Indian film.
The China Film Group, the most powerful state-backed film company, supported its release in China. Aamir was feted by China’s most famous actors, appearing on stage with the glamorous Liu Yifei.
(Aamir later arranged a private screening for Yifei, and said he would like to work with her. She returned the compliment, triggering speculation that an Aamir-Yifei film, perhaps his first in China, may soon be on the cards.)
In Shanghai, Aamir mingled with university students, and in Chengdu, he posed with pandas and did yoga with his (mostly female) fan following.
Besides the promotion effort, the Aamir factor has also been key. More than any Indian star, Aamir has been smart in engaging his Chinese fan following.
(Shah Rukh and Salman are perhaps the other two well-known Indian actors with some following in China.)
Aamir is the only Indian actor with an active Chinese social media presence, on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo. By the time of his arrival in end-April, he had close to 2 lakh followers.
Today, after the Dangal craze, he has 4.5 lakh followers - far more than PM Narendra Modi who, with 1.7 lakh followers, had been the most followed Indian on Chinese social media.
But even this potent combination of Aamir and a costly promotion effort couldn’t alone explain this success. That has more to do with the uniqueness of the film and its themes - and the uncanny way it has related to Chinese audiences in perhaps the only other society that is, as much as India, both patriarchal and more-than-familiar with pushy parents.
“It made me think of my father,” one person said in an interview with a newspaper. “His reticent love for us. I wanted to call him, say nothing, just cry, and cry like a river to release myself from my deep regrets.”
Extremely positive reviews - both by critics and from word of mouth - have helped push the film to the top of the box office, dislodging for two days the Hollywood blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (which has raked in, in total, more than Rs 400 crore).
And Dangal could probably have made even more than its current Rs 200 crore if not for an almost blanket blanking out of the film by the powerful Wanda Cinemas group, the biggest theatre operator with close to 3,000 screens.
Dangal was ultimately shown in less than 7,000 screens in total, far less than Guardians and the 9,000 that was hoped for. Rumours in the Chinese media said Wanda was effectively boycotting Dangal because of a rivalry with one of the Chinese promoters.
A petulant Wanda only screened Dangal early morning and late night - and in VIP rooms where each ticket was at least Rs 1,500. And even these shows were sold out.
In one screening that I watched on May 10 - most screenings in Beijing are with Chinese subtitles, while Chinese language dubbed versions have been shown in smaller towns - the mostly female audience around me was weeping visibly.
A few clapped spontaneously at the end of the film, something that I’d rarely witnessed. On the website Maoyan, the most widely used online ticket vendor, the film after one week had a 9.8 rating out of 10.
“I never wrote a review for any movie before, but I want to today because it was so touching,” read one review. “I was laughing and crying at the same time.” “Best movie ever,” read another. “While I was watching it, I could not even drink water so as not to go to toilet and miss the movie details.” “I am going to ask my dad to watch Dangal with me again,” said another.
Many reviewers wondered why China had never made a similar film, given it's a society dealing with similar challenges. In China too, there’s a wide societal preference for boys, manifested in the most unbalanced sex ratio anywhere, after three decades of the one-child policy in a country that records the most number of abortions.
The Confucian theme of filial piety was another deeply resonant theme, along with the fact that it depicted India and its society, from unhelpful government officials to outdated social values, with warts and all - and these are familiar warts for people in China - rather than the polished and shiny reality that is usually depicted both in Bollywood and most mainstream Chinese films.
Could Dangal’s success be a game-changer in terms of how Bollywood sees China? It’s perhaps too early to tell.
The only prior success was PK - another Aamir Khan film - that made Rs 100 crore, while other films, from My Name is Khan to Fan and Dhoom 3, didn’t fare as well.
Its success, however, has a larger message. At a time when India and China are now co-producing films with the aim of tapping both markets - the first trial balloon, Kung Fu Yoga, which did well in China but fizzled in India, was a soulless and vacuous commercial film - Dangal shows that audiences on both sides of the border don’t need to be force-fed contrived themes to establish a connect.
On the contrary, it was the film’s honesty - and holding up a mirror to Indian society - that most struck a chord in the country across the Himalayas that is dealing with very similar issues.