After China, Dangal Storm Takes Over Hong Kong

China’s reception for Dangal brought glory to Indian cinema. It changed the face of Hindi films, once and for all. Forbes placed Dangal on the fifth spot in the list of highest earning non-Hollywood film in cinema history. The unexpected tides swept off more than Rs 1200 crore from the territory. The numbers were four times higher than that of Dangal’s collection in India.

This time, the tides are rather smaller for Dangal as the film has been released in only 47 screens in Hong Kong. The release size is quite dismissive compared to its massive China release. However, the film raked in a solid Rs 7.04 crore in week-1. The numbers may not look very high and compelling, but for a market like Hong Kong, these are some benchmark numbers for a foreign language film. We are talking of numbers higher than 8.6 million Hong Kong dollars here. Rs 7.04 crore in 47 screens, you can do the maths.

Dangal opened second to Hollywood’s ‘A Dogs Purpose’ at the Hong Kong box-office. The film started its proceedings on Thursday (24th September) and collected Rs 1.03 crore including previews. Dangal maintained strong charts over the weekend and collected a total of Rs 4.26 crore. The film showed a remarkable hold in the weekdays and brought in close to Rs 3.8 crore to end week-1 with Rs 7.04 crore.

Dangal’s foreign territory exception has stretched its wings to nearly every box-office of the world. Before its Asia take over, the film had already raked in over Rs 300 crore from the International markets and Rs 375 crore from the Indian box-office. But, things changed after its China release. The film became the biggest non-Hollywood import to have ever released in China. The film left behind International blockbusters like Captain America: Civil War, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Jungle Book and Kung Fu Panda 3. The China momentum took the film over Rs 2000 crore, a feat no other Hindi film will come close to, in the next few years at least.

Who needs large screen counts when a movie can do wonder in 47 screens. This year, in particular, we have seen a lot of big films fall flat at the box-office and the small releases, with low screen count, make it big. We have a lot of recent examples like Dunkirk, Hindi Medium, and Annabelle: Creation doing great despite the odds attached.

The success of Dangal in Hong Kong is an eye opener for the likes of those who still indulge to movie-making with the concept of star power and dance numbers. It’s high time we realize the importance of content, and how it is impacting Indian cinema at a global level.