Assam film gains big with projector promo
GUWAHATI: Social media helps promote films these days. But the oldfashioned projector and small town campaigning has played a crucial role in helping an Assamese film with a touch of China beat blockbuster Baahubali’s firstday collection.
Mission China, the costliest Assamese film produced by Garima Saikia Garg and released on Friday, had a net collection of about ₹39 lakh across 65 theatres, eight of them outside Assam.
This hasn’t just left Raamdhenu, the last major successful Assamese film in 2011, way behind, but also beaten the firstday collection record of Baahubali and Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan by a considerable margin, say trade pundits. “The business of Raamdhenu and Mission China cannot be compared because the former was released six years ago when there were fewer multiplexes in Assam. But in terms of footfall, Mission China has outdone even big Bollywood productions,” Siddharth Goenka, the film’s distributor, said.
Garg hopes the film does well over the week and beyond to first recover the cost. “An average Assamese commercial film costs ₹50 lakh. Ours overshot the initial budget by 100% to cross the ₹2 crore mark as we wanted it to be appealing with aerial shots, paramotoring etc,” she said. “Our focus was on providing a good entertainer. The initial response shows people have liked the film, which is a mix of romance, comedy, drama and the kind of action and locales Assamese cinema never offered before,” she said.
The producer attributed part of the success to old-fashioned promotion through projectors in rural and semi-urban areas. Films shown through projector machines on a portable screen continue to be a major attraction in rural areas, especially the tea estates of Assam.
According to Sattyakee D’Com Bhuyan, who plays a significant role in the film, Mission China is not only about battling extremism and terrorism but also about fighting one’s inner demons.
The main attraction of the film is Zubeen Garg, more popularly known as a playback singer, who plays an army officer on a mission to rescue a kidnapped girl. He is also the film’s director. The closest the film physically or metaphorically comes to China is with an extremist hideout near the Tibetan border in Sikkim.
“Mission China has virtually rejuvenated an industry that was gasping for breath. We hope it does wonders for regional cinema,” film distributor and producer Abdul Mannan Faruk said.
But film critic Chandan Sarma begs to differ. “Zubeen has cashed in on his popularity as a singerentertainer. It isn’t going to affect the business of Assamese cinema that cannot match the sheer marketability of big-budget or slickly produced entertainers from Mumbai or Chennai,” he said.