With Rani Mukerji’s Hichki raking in Rs 100 crore in China, one thing is clear—our neighbouring nation is slowly but surely falling for Bollywood, one film at a time.
Interestingly, the film has achieved the box office feat in just 13 days of its release. Titled Teacher with Hiccup, it opened in China on October 12, with Rani promoting the film extensively across major Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu.
"Good cinema has no language barriers and it connects with the the audience’s hearts and minds. Hichki’s success in China proves just that," Rani said in a statement.
"We knew we had made a special film but for it to get so much love and acclaim from audiences across the globe is an extremely proud and humbling moment for all of us," she added.
However, this story of perseverance of a teacher battling Tourette Syndrome, a nervous-system disorder that causes her to react a certain way every time she gets anxious, isn’t the first Bollywood film to wow the Chinese audiences.
Rani’s struggle to provide equal education to underprivileged children in the face of many adversities in Hichki is the latest Indian story to have found an immediate connect with the Chinese. Before this, Aamir Khan’s Dhoom 3, PK, Dangal and Secret Superstar, and Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan have had stupendous success at the Chinese box office.
According to Forbes, Aamir’s PK grossed Rs 146.6 crore, Dangal Rs 1393.5 crore and Secret Superstar, which released in China earlier this year on January 19, earned Rs 799.4 crore within 24 days, beating even the local favourite Till the End of the World. Salman’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan also raked in Rs 294 crore within the first month of its release in China.
In fact, Aamir is so popular in the country that he is lovingly called Uncle Aamir there and his 2009 film 3 Idiots is ranked among the top 15 most-loved films of all time.
With the kind of Indian films that are being celebrated in China, it’s evident that our themes of struggle, perseverance, poverty, education, gender inequality, rampant sexism and abuse have found a ready audience there, since these films perfectly mirror China’s current socio-economic crisis.
The enthusiasm for Aamir’s films in China is such that when Chinese President Xi Jinping met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Kazakhstan summit in 2017, he reportedly told him how much he “loved" Dangal and how he wanted to watch more of such films.
Ahead of the release of this forthcoming film Thugs of Hindostan, Aamir recently met a top official from China's film regulator to discuss opportunities to monetise the humongous potential of the untapped Chinese market. He even expressed interest in doing a film with Chinese actors.
Considering his staggering popularity both in India and China, Uncle Aamir’s idea could just prove to be a gold mine paving way for bigger films for wider audiences.
(With inputs from IANS)
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