After failing to live up to its own hype, China's slumbering film market has received a shot of inspiration from the most unlikely of sources: its own neighbor.
After debuting to high acclaim at home last December, India's Dangal (2016) has finally made its way to China to become its top grossing film for the month of May.
Outperforming the likes of familiar Hollywood film franchises like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tale, Dangal has grossed an impressive 1.171 billion yuan at the Chinese box office so far, making it one of the country's top 25 highest grossing films.
But for all of its success, what truly sets Dangal apart from other films is its stand against traditional conservative values – a controversial stance to take in both India and China.
Dangal is the true-life biographical sports film that squarely takes aim at the orthodoxy of patriarchy. The film centers on Mahavir Singh Phogat, an amateur coach who overcame societal pressure and gender stereotypes to train his daughters in the sport of wrestling, ultimately becoming championship wrestlers.
In spite of its nontraditional subject matter, Dangal become nothing less of a cultural phenomenon in India. The film has been a runaway commercial hit, making it India's top grossing film of all time; at the same time, Dangal has won multiple awards at the 2016 Filmfare Awards, earning it nods for best film, director, and actor.
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Dangal's themes concerning patriarchy and gender inequality also proved to be well-received in China. The 35 million Chinese viewers that have watched Dangal (or, as it is called in China, Let's Wrestle, Father) have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic towards it, earning the movie a sky-high 9.2 rating out of some 278,000 Douban reviews.
The amazing success of Dangal comes despite the lack of presence of Indian culture in China. Even though China shares a geographical border with India, Chinese culture culture is much more influenced by idol bands from South Korea and anime from Japan, confining India's cultural footprint to being an exotic destination in Journey to the West.
In fact, India's impact upon Chinese culture is so small that when Dangal was chosen to screen at the Beijing International Film Festival, it was the first movie from India to ever have that honor.
The critical and financial success of Dangal comes at a time when China's film market has not lived up to its hype. Inundated with poor quality films and box office fraud, China has taken to censoring bad reviews while making movies with stars chosen solely on the size of their fan base.
And, the poor quality of China's films has not been inspiring to its audiences. China's best performing domestic film so far this year is Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Yoga, a film rated at just 50 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, the appearance of rising starlets in Hollywood films like Jing Tian in Kong: Skull Island has provoked public suspicion rather than applause.
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Picking up the slack, Hollywood films like The Fate of the Furious, xXx: Return of Xander Cage and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter have all been successful in China. And yet, these films are all sequels to film franchises familiar to Chinese audiences, creating a fatigue upon audiences long before May.
In this atmosphere of poor Chinese films, Hollywood franchise fatigue and an ongoing ban on South Korean entertainment, Dangal has made the most of its opportunity to win over the Chinese film market.
Even though it is at heart a Disneyfied-heartwarming tale, the real lesson for Chinese films is that a good quality film is its own best story.
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Twitter: @Sinopath
Images: Sohu, India, Bollywood Life
