Believe it or not, Amir Khan’s movie Dangal, based on the lives of two real wrestling champion sisters, is a stupendous hit in China.
In China, where it is still running, the movie has already done a business of Rs.1000/ crores, while in India it has earned Rs. 700/ crores.
So what has made this film so popular in China?
First of all, we must understand that China has a much larger population than India; in 2014 Chinese population was 126 million more than India. So for a ‘hit’ movie there are those many more potential viewers and therefore more revenue.
But why has it become so popular with Chinese people?
As a Chinese fan of the movie, Kevin Weng says,
“My girlfriend and I both like it and have watch it two times in cinema. I like its wonderful wrestling frames and especially the story it tells.
Fighting for medals,struggle for dreams, normal family in the remote countryside, early marriage , studying in the University which is the first time to big cities, facing various temptation and so on are familiar to most Chinese like me.”
Where has the data come from?
The box office of Dangal is from maoyan ( the largest on-line ticket booking app in China ) and the total box office is from the official news.
The box office forecasting of Dangal on maoyan has gone to 1.27 billion rmb (1200+ cr), higher than that of Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Maybe Dangal will become the first India film collecting 2000 crores eventually.
As business magazine Forbes reports:
For 61 of the 62 days it has played in China, the Aamir Khan-starring drama has ranked among the top 10 films in box office revenue. The one day that it slipped from the top 10 was last Friday, July 1st, when it dipped to 11th place the day after six brand new films arrived in theaters to push Dangal out. The very next day it bounced back to 8th place, where it has remained for the past several days.
In the final analysis, Chinese people were bored of watching surrealistic American movies with dragons, ETs, Space travel etc. etc. Dangal felt more real.
As a fan said“Neither mummies nor pirates nor superheroes nor alien robots can stay this picture from pleasing Chinese moviegoers in their auditorium halls.”
Will Indian producers learn from this example and give us more of such films?
