Amid China-India tensions, Bollywood and cinema can help bridge divides

Cinema can connect the young people of China and India, strengthen links and facilitate diplomatic dialogue, particularly when filmmakers collaborate
The pandemic and last year’s border conflict have slowed down progress, but the pragmatic possibilities of film diplomacy are too many to ignore

Faisal AhmedandHiu Man Chan

Published: 4:00am, 27 Feb 2021

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When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India in September 2014, India and China signed a film co-production treaty in New Delhi. That same year, China was the focus country for India’s International Film Festival, held in Goa. Their bilateral treaty aimed to pool both countries’ resources, creativity and expertise to produce films together.

Cinema is an effective soft power instrument. It connects people, encourages cultural appreciation, deepens civilisational links and helps diplomatic dialogue. It is much needed today, when the world view is dominated by “popular geopolitics” – that is, the representations and perceptions created by mass media, including films.

As we look forward to an “Asian century”, a focus on cinema and film cooperation can help to strengthen links and build confidence. When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Wuhan in April 2018 in what would be the first of several informal summits ushering a new era in Sino-Indian ties, a banquet hosted by President Xi played Bollywood tunes, highlighting the appeal and soft power of Indian cinema in China.

Under the aegis of the 2014 co-production treaty, the initial films proposed include The Zookeeper, a travel drama by Indian filmmaker Kabir Khan, and Love in Beijing, a cross-cultural romantic comedy to be directed by Siddharth Anand.

Other Sino-Indian film collaborations have since hit the big screen. Xuan Zang, released in 2016, depicts the journey of a Chinese monk and scholar of the same name who travelled to India in the 7th century. Its big-name cast includes China’s Huang Xiaoming and India’s Sonu Sood.

Sood also starred alongside actress Disha Patani and martial arts star Jackie Chan in the 2017 adventure-comedy film Kung Fu Yoga. In 2019, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and filmmaker Kabir Khan attended the China-India Film Cooperation Dialogue at the 9th Beijing International Film Festival. Khan was mobbed by fans in China.

Before the recent round of tensions between India and China, films from India were breaking box-office records in China, surging ahead as the best-performing non-Hollywood foreign films. In 2017, Dangal, a sports film starring Aamir Khan as a father who sidelined social taboos to train his daughters for a wrestling championship, made 1.3 billion yuan (US$190 million) at the box office. In 2019, comedy-crime thriller Andhadhun made an estimated 330 million yuan in China, and remains a popular foreign film there.

Both India and China have cinema histories that stretch back more than a century. The first Chinese film, Dingjun Mountain, a silent movie, was made in 1905. Directed by Ren Qingtai, it is a historical account of the Battle of Mount Dingjun fought in 219AD, and based on a 14th century historical novel.

India’s first film was also silent. The 1913 Raja Harishchandra, directed and produced by Dadasaheb Phalke, popularly known as the “Father of Indian cinema”, was based on the life of the ancient King Harishchandra, whose life stories are documented in ancient Indian scriptures including the Mahabharata and the Markandeya Purana.

Today, Indian films have huge potential in China. They connect with, and deeply fascinate Chinese audiences, with their glamour, emotional content and familial values.

Before the onset of the pandemic and last year’s border conflict, many Chinese investors had been rushing to buy distribution rights to more Indian films, encouraged by previous successes. But such optimism has waned amid border tensions, nationalist calls for a boycott and pandemic restrictions on cinemas.

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Although Chinese films do not appear to have managed the same success with Indian audiences, Indian films continue to prove popular in China, and many have been released not just in the cinemas but also via digital platforms. Remakes of Indian films have also started to appear.

In 2019, Chinese film Sheep Without a Shepherd gained reasonable success, making 1.3 billion yuan in box-office revenue. The film is a remake of the 2013 Malayalam-language movie Drishyam, which was a huge success in India.

Newly released American film The White Tiger, directed by Ramin Bahrani and starring Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra and Rajkummar Rao, carries a China connection too. In the film, based on a 2008 award-winning Aravind Adiga novel, the lead character writes an email to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, requesting a meeting with him, and telling him his life story.

So let us not limit our imagination, and instead focus on all the pragmatic possibilities of film diplomacy. Cinema at its best can connect the young people of China and India, and strengthen the cultural links between the two great civilisations. As The White Tiger seems to suggests, India and China are the future.

Faisal Ahmed researches on India-China relations, and is an associate professor of international business at the FORE School of Management in New Delhi, India. Hiu Man Chan is founder and director of the UK-China Film Collab, a non-profit organisation, and a lecturer in creative and cultural industries at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. The views expressed here are personal

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