No-show for Sultan in China: Here's why the Indian blockbuster failed to impress audiences

Since the success of Dangal in China, the industry has been contemplating what clicks with the audience in the neighbouring country. However, it is now time to think about what is going wrong with certain films that have been unable to tame the dragon.

Two major successes in India, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion and Salman Khan-starrer Sultan, have not been able to make a great impact in China at a time when the Chinese box office has warmed up to our films.

It was a no-show for the recently released wrestling drama Sultan, despite having a theme similar to Dangal. While Sultan has secured itself a position in the list of highest grossing Indian films, the sports drama had a dull opening in China and continued to trade slow over the weekend. The film, which made over Rs 400 crore in India, started its China journey with a business of Rs 6.75 crore, a lot lower than previous Indian films like Dangal and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which made Rs 16.63 crore and Rs 14.96 crore respectively on day one.

In the following days, it was a ho-hum affair for Sultan with a total of 766,873 footfalls and collections worth Rs 24.65 crore.

Factors that may have led to lacklustre performance of Sultan in China

Talking to Moneycontrol, Amit Sharma, MD of Miraj Cinemas, said, “The Chinese audience wants to see realistic cinema from India. If you look at Indian cinema that has gone and performed well in China, all of them have realism attached."

Although Sultan revolved around the sports of wrestling, which was also the central subject in Dangal, it probably was the director’s 'Bollywood touch' to the film that may have disappointed the audience. The fact that Salman Khan’s character manages to secure Gold at Olympics by merely training for 30 days may have created a disconnect between the film and the Chinese audience, explains Sharma. In China, people take up sports, especially karate, at an early age and know what it takes to train for any game.

Adding to this, Sharma also said if the success of previous films is taken into consideration, there has been another common thread — a strong female protagonist. Even for Dangal, it was the theme of women empowerment that struck the right chord with cinema lovers in China.

But one important factor, according to Sharma, that could have led to Sultan’s struggle in China is competition from Hollywood. Sultan is running in theatres along with AntMan and the Wasp and Mission Impossible: Fallout.

Similar was the situation for Baahubali 2, which had a dream run in India but had to settle with around Rs 80 crore in China.

Prasad Shetty, director, China Peacock Mountain Group, had earlier said, “China is a big market in itself. There is huge opportunity for Indian films to grow in China. One beautiful thing that has happened with Indian films in China is that it is not the blockbusters that have travelled to China, it is the films that have both good and universal content. Human stories have an easier way to travel to China.”

Adding to this film, producer Ashish Singh had said, “Dhoom 3 did not do that well in China as it was like any other Hollywood film. Big film, big action sequences.”

To ace the China game, producers may have to particularly pay attention to two main factors — no fictional stories and timing of the release to avoid competition from Hollywood.