After decades, a Bollywood film to scale Great Wall

It is essentially an Indian theme in an US setting, which is now on its way to hit screens in China on November 30. In the process, My Name is Khan will be the first Indian film that will be released in China in decades.

The Shah Rukh Khan starrer will have 50 prints with Mandarin subtitles and the premiere is likely to be in Beijing.

Because of the strict entertainment policy, each year, barely 20 foreign language films make their way to movie halls of China . The country has chosen MNIK as one of its foreign language films for release in 2010. Other Indian movies such as Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani (1946), Awaara (1951) and Do Bigha Zameen (1953) were the previous big hits in China. However, after 1962 India-China war, films made here became the first casualty as diplomatic relations between the two countries soured.

“The Chinese authorities are really tough when it comes to foreign films. To be asked to release MNIK is an amazing honour,” said Mr Vijay Singh, CEO, Fox Star Studios India, the distributors of the movie. It now remains to be seen if this will pave the way for other films from India and, conversely, encourage the entry of Chinese films here.

Not run of the mill

MNIK, quite unlike its predecessors that were screened in China decades ago, is not exactly a hardcore Indian film. Dr Kotnis…, on the other hand, was a sure entrant given that the focus was China, while Awaara and Do Bigha… were Indian at their core.

Where MNIK set a benchmark is the fact that it was the first Hindi film to be released in 66 countries through Fox Searchlight. This strategy, known as a platform release and adopted by major Hollywood studios, was tried out for the first time in a regular Bollywood movie.

Fox Searchlight had, incidentally, released Slumdog Millionaire with 100 prints but increased it to over 2,000 prints after seeing the response to the film.

MNIK, likewise, kicked off with 2,200 prints and gradually grew by another 500 in six months in non-traditional markets such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Poland.