Legend has it that Raj Kapoor once landed unannounced at the Moscow airport and fans gathered as soon as they got wind of the news. Such was the euphoria around the Indian actor that when he got into a cab outside the airport, his fans picked up the car on their shoulders. His film Awara—released as Brodiaga, or the Vagabond in Russian—was a runaway success at home and abroad, and sold more than 60 million tickets in the erstwhile Soviet Union. The success was followed by films like Rishi Kapoor’s Bobby, Hema Malini’s Seeta Aur Geeta, and Mithun Chakraborty’s Disco Dancer.

The love for Indian cinema in Russia and neighbouring countries might have come down over the years but Indian films are now conquering newer territories. In 2016, Aamir Khan managed to recreate similar euphoria in China, not completely akin to Raj Kapoor’s, but euphoria nonetheless. His film Dangal — the story of a wrestler who trains his daughters to international sporting success under adverse social circumstances—reportedly made more than ₹1,200 crore in China.

It was a feat unheard of for Indian films anywhere in the world. Indian films are usually released on a limited number of screens in the U.S. or the U.K., which collectively make up more than 5 million of the Indian diaspora, according to government data. China, with only about 55,000, hasn’t traditionally been a market for Indian films, but Dangal changed that. The film was released across thousands of screens and became the highest grossing non-Hollywood/non-Chinese film in the local market.

So does that mean that China, with more than five times the number of screens than India and a growing fan base for Indian films, is the new playground for Bollywood? Or is the success of films like Dangal, Secret Superstar, and Bajrangi Bhaijaan just a flash in the pan? One thing is certain: South Asians aren’t the only ones watching these films anymore. The performance of some of Aamir Khan’s recent films was “fuelled by local Chinese viewers as against South Asian diaspora. The Chinese, though coming from a different culture, have been able to identify with the core themes of these movies”, says a report, ‘Economic Contribution of the Film and Television Industry in India’, 2017, by Deloitte and the Motion Picture Distributors Association.

Kumar Ahuja, president of business development at Eros International, which has produced films that have done well in China, says Bollywood films with women-oriented subjects have been more successful in China. A large number of screens that take these films wider and to a larger audience has helped. In 2011, China had around 9,000 screens; now it has more than 50,000, and hundreds of them are in towns with a million-plus population, he explains. In comparison, the number of single-screen cinemas in India has fallen from 9,710, or 91% of total screens in India in 2009, to less than 71% in 2017 or 6,780 screens, according to a 2018 FICCI-EY report on India’s media and entertainment sector. At the same time, the number of multiplex screens has increased to nearly 3,000.

The success of foreign films is not novel. French, Italian, Japanese, Iranian, and many other language films enjoy massive patronage outside of their home countries. But the success of these films abroad is in part because of the following that directors like Italy’s Federico Fellini, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, Japan’s Akira Kurosawa, Hong Kong-based director Wong Kar-Wai, or Iran’s Majid Majidi have around the world and the fact that they have paved the way for and created curiosity for new cinema from their countries. Not many Indian directors, apart from Satyajit Ray, are perhaps that well known globally.

Therefore, Indian films, known for their song-and-dance sequences, have largely been restricted globally to Indian audiences who understand the language and context, and are familiar with big names in Bollywood or regional cinema. But production houses are optimistic the perception is changing. “The audience is now familiar with Indian actors after many successful releases, which is helping to make way for Indian films in China. The year 2019 will see a maximum number of Bollywood films in Chinese cinemas, along with a lot of regional films soon entering this market,” says Eros’ Ahuja.

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