Move over Jackie Chan. To the back of the class, Jet Li. And Donnie Yen, you better stick to Hollywood. For Bollywood’s action superstar Akshay Kumar has crossed the Great Wall to entertain Chinese cinema audiences with his New Age meaningful films. With Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, his very first outing there this weekend, the Khiladi rocked the Chinese box office and earned Rs. 15.80 crore.
The film, which was a thumping commercial success in India, was titled Toilet Hero for Chinese audiences and released in 4,300 screens by Reliance Entertainment and got 56.974 shows. That’s 5 percent more shows than what the film got when it opened in India last year in August. Toilet Hero earned “a whopping 15 million Yuan on Day 1 – the third biggest opening of an Indian film in China” the entertainment company tweeted.
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Akshay himself was quick in expressing his appreciation and delight to the overwhelming reception Toilet Hero got in China. “Thank you audiences in China for your appreciation for Toilet Hero. Delighted to receive so much love,” the actor also tweeted in Chinese and English acknowledging the audiences’ response to the Shree Narayan Singh directed film which deals with the subject of open-air defecation in India and the need for toilets.
Here's the tweet:
https://twitter.com/akshaykumar/status/1005361826291437568
Toilet Hero, with Chinese subtitles, turned out to be a much larger release than the previous two Bollywood films that went to China – Hindi Medium and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. It got an encouraging 8.5 stars out of 10 by Chinese film critics. Equally excited was the film’s female lead, actress Bhumi Pednekar, who tweeted, “Thank you again for all the love & support we have already got and really hope that we get the same all over again.”
Bollywood producers are rubbing their hands in glee at the new market that China has become ever since the neighboring country became receptive to Indian films. It was Aamir Khan’s Dangal that set the ball rolling. Baahubali 2, Hindi Medium, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Secret Superstar were also favorably received there. Bollywood trade pundits say that all these films, besides raking in big money in China (sometimes more than what they made in India), do much to create harmony between the neighboring countries which have always had lukewarm relations because they create goodwill for India among audiences in China.
