DANGAL IN CHINA: AAMIR WOOS BEIJING BEFORE FILM’S RELEASE
Bollywood star Aamir Khan had a simple message when he spoke on international co-productions at the Beijing International Film Festival (BIFF) this week: “A good character and a good story can help you cross borders.”
Khan is hoping his hit movie Dangal is able to do just that and strike a chord with Chinese audiences – who have just delivered a fantastic record opening for The Fate Of The Furious, the latest in The Fast And The Furious series, fuelling its box office earings of $ 190 million over the first weekend.
Dangal, which releases across China on May 6, will be tested against Hollywood blockbusters that routinely do well in the country.
If it doesn’t fare well, it won’t be because the movie hasn’t been promoted in China. Dangal’s promoters in China told Hindustan Times that Khan’s five-day, threecity tour and events organised to popularise the film have made it, by far, the mostpromoted Indian movie in China, both in terms of budget and scope.
Known to be a hard worker, Khan’s schedule was packed. Talking at BIFF, sharing the stage and events with China’s top boxer and most popular American basketball player in Beijing, interacting with students in Shanghai, feeding giant pandas, wrestling with two members of the Sichuan women’s wrestling team in Chengdu and giving an interview to China’s national broadcaster CCTV were some of his engagements.
Khan’s new account on Weibo, China’s Twitter, notched up around 220,000 fans and his first welcome comment on it was liked some 30,000 times.