Indian filmmakers at this year’s “Bollywood Oscars” weekend in Macau are looking beyond the lucrative market of Hollywood into what they consider to be an even more exciting partner: China.
The selection of this southern Chinese territory as host of this year’s International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) underlines Bollywood’s desire to work closer with its Chinese counterpart.
Sabbas Joseph, director of the event — a star-studded annual extravaganza celebrating the prolific Hindi movie industry — said many subjects tackled by cinema appeal to both Indian and Chinese audiences because of common values and traditions.
Veteran Bollywood film critic Taran Adash said the collaboration was long-awaited.
“The sheer thought of China and India working together gives me a high,” he said.
China’s technology, actors and martial arts were “way ahead” of their Indian counterparts, and many Chinese films that were dubbed into Indian languages proved to be highly popular in India, he said.
Last year, China’s nationwide box office receipts hit a record 4.2 billion yuan (US$610 million), up 27 percent from 2007, thanks to a growing audience of well-off young urbanites and an increase in big-ticket Chinese films.
The trend seems to have continued amid the economic downturn, according to figures from the State Administration for Film, Television and Radio. In the first three months of the year, box office receipts jumped more than 50 percent to 1.25 billion yuan.
However, China-India crossover films are still in their infancy. Chandni Chowk to China, co-produced by Bollywood veteran Ramesh Sippy and US studio Warner Bros, bombed at the box office when it opened in January.
“The two cultures are similar but really not that similar,” said Fred Wang (汪長禹), chairman of Hong Kong-based production company Salon Films and a speaker at the IIFA forum on the future of the Indian and Chinese film industries. “To start with, China had closed its door to the West for many years, while India is a former British colony.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not