What made Dangal a success in China?
In the summer of 2017, an Indian movie overwhelmed Chinese social media: Dangal. During that summer, I saw Aamir Khan, the famous Indian actor who plays the main character in Dangal, everywhere. On the home page of Baidu, a major search engine in China, you can always see Dangal’s poster Aamir Khan with his arms folded staring at you. In fact, the Chinese translation of Dangal occupied Baidu’s hot search for months: you can always see that poster when you click the hot search. What’s more, thousands of articles on WeChat public accounts, Weibo, QQ, and other Chinese mainstream social platforms inserted that poster right under their headlines and them analyzed the education methods, or the rise of women right reflected in the movie. Many companies found an effective advertising strategy: talk about Dangal first and then advertise their products no matter it is related to the movie. Even the strictest parents who never allow their children to watch movies would make an exception and bring their kids to watch Dangal. Dangal became a word you must know for socializing in 2017: people from all ages in China, whether they like it or not, discussed Dangal.
Dangal is about the former wrestler Mahavir, who once was the national champion, training his oldest and second daughters, Geeta and Babita, wrestling to achieve his dream of winning a medal for India. With the support from her father, Geeta became a world wrestling champion and her experiences inspired millions of Indian women to chase their dreams and live the lives they want. The intriguing theme of Indian wrestling, which is one of the most popular sports in India, inspirational plot of competitive sports and one pursuing his dream, as well as the awareness of feminine consciousness in the movie made it Indian box office champion in 2016. The interesting point I found was that Dangal’s box office in China, almost two hundred million dollars, was twice of that in India. In fact, Dangal’s domestic box office only ranks the third for all time, but it will rank the absolute first place when we count the global box office. Despite the differences in purchasing power and population, it seemed that Dangal was even more popular in China than its home country. Dangal’s blockbuster performance in box office and fierce social discussion in China prove that it is a success of culture localization. So, what made it so popular in China?
Some may argue that Dangal’s success is a coincidence that it is released in Chinese movies’ summer slot when most people are free. Since there are no strong competitors and many Chinese are used to watching movies during their holiday, a good movie like Dangal could easily achieve a great box office success in the Chinese movie market. However, I believe that Dangal’s miracle is irreplicable, and those arguments are plausible when we look at Bad Genius, a Thailand movie that was released in China in 2018 summer. From Douban, a major Chinese movie rating website, Bad Genius has a rating of 8.5 while Dangal has a rating of 8.3. However, Bad Genius only achieved a box office of twenty million dollars, only tenth of that of Dangal. I believe the major reason that Dangal achieved great success in China is that some values in the movie resonate with today Chinese people.
I don’t think the elements and values that made Dangal successful in China are the same of that made it successful in India. Through the Quint, an English and Hindi language Indian general news and opinion website, I found that most Indian audience focused on commenting on the sport Dangal and the rise of women right. However, I don’t think these two themes won the favors of Chinese audience. First, few Chinese audience heard about dangal, Indian wrestling, before. Although it may be exotic, its popularity among Chinese audience and attraction to them are far less than other sports movies that are about basketball, boxing, or car racing, which are much more popular in China. Although the common theme of patriotism and pursuing dreams resonate with many Chinese, this didn’t make Dangal distinguish from other competitive sports movies, and the theme of dangal is alien and unattractive to the major Chinese audience.
The theme of women status under a patriarchic society in Dangal created huge social discussion in China and extended the movie’s influence; however, it is controversial and may have overall negative impact on Dangal’s reputation. In the 19th and 20th Century, both Chinese and Indian society are patriarchic, and women are suppressed by the gender role. During Qing Dynasty in China, women had to wrap their feet to keep their feet small, which is a warped aesthetics and caused eternal harm to their feet, or else no men would marry them. What’s more, women could not eat at the same table with men: they had to make the meal and eat alone. In both Chinese and Indian traditional values, women are suppressed to be attachments to their fathers or husbands instead of being themselves. As a result, more and more women right movements started in both China and India after 2010, speaking for the silent and suppressed women. And Mahavir’s decision of training her daughters to become wrestlers help them avoid their faith of being the attachment of men and become independent. I really like the scene that Mahavir’s daughters talked to their friend who is arranged by her father to marry a stranger. Her experience made them realize that the freedom to choose their own life is priceless and determine to work hard during training. This scene inspired many Indian audience that they could choose their own life instead of marrying to a stranger and give up their dream at a young age. However, this scene is criticized in many Chinese media, like Douban. Many Chinese audience, especially female, think that Mahavir is a representation of the patriotism: he forced his daughters to train hard to fulfil his dream. Also, they believe that fathers should never arrange marriage for their daughters: marrying a stranger is impossible to today’s Chinese social norms. Women are born to have the right to choose their own life: they don’t need to fight for it.
The major element that attracts Chinese audience is family. The movie shows a complete process of how kids have conflict with their parents and eventually understand their parents’ love to them. In fact, the Chinese name of Dangal is Go dangling, Dad! The Chinese translation seems to have grammar problem in both Chinese and English, but really stressed the term Dad. Geeta challenged Mahavir’s training methods and wrestling techniques and thought they were out of date. She had a wrestling competition with his father and beat him. (The young generation challenged the old one, the barrier between parents and kids) After failures in international wrestling competitions, Geeta accepted Babita’s advice to talk with her father. When Geeta heard Mahavir’s voice, she couldn’t stop crying and compromised with her father. (Relationship with parents and kids) Also, at the last round of the competition’s final, Geeta’s points fell behind her opponent, and her father was locked by her coach. She remembered the time she fell in the water when she was a kid. Mahavir said to her that he couldn’t always be with her: she had to overcome fear independently. Finally, Geeta won the game. (The growing of the young generation and patriotism)
