Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi starring Alia Bhatt is creating huge waves all around East Asia on Netflix after it’s Box Office rampage worldwide. The movie was one of the firsts to hit the big-screen after Omicron shut theatres in January.
Not only was Gangubai Kathiawadi a success critically, it also breached 100 crores at the domestic box-office and became a huge success. The Alia Bhatt starrer also earned huge chunk of money in the overseas market.
Besides repeating it’s domestic success on Netflix India and in other traditional markets like US, UK, Egypt etc post it’s April 26th release, the movie has conquered new markets especially in East Asia unheard for bollywood releases in a while. All thanks to Netflix acquiring the film. The show has been trending at #1 and is on a pop culture spiral in Thailand since May first week and the rampage has not stopped. Rather travelled far and wide to other East Asian countries like South Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc.. Viral tweets, tik toks, Instagram reels have become an everyday phenomenon for the film. After staying for weeks at #1 in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Gangubai is trending on top in South Korea now. According to reports, the movie is the most watched Indian film in East Asia in a long while. And why would it not be when most of Asia suffers from horrors of prostitution, stigma and ostracism of sex-workers.
Now this should act as a wake-up call for upcoming Indian biggies. There’s untapped potential in many East Asian Markets for Indian films largely due to cultural similarities. Just like how Aamir Khan worked his way from 3Idiots to Dangal to tap China as a potential market for Indian films, we should have stars and film makers focussing on other Asian markets now more than ever.
Although Bollywood traditionally has a huge following in Indonesia, Maldives, Malaysia etc, little efforts are taken by our film-makers and actors of today to release their films theatrically in these territories. Thailand is something sort of a Gangubai Kathiawadi discovery and we hope Alia, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the whole of Indian cinema is watching.
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