China’s Hollywood Appeal Outshines Bollywood’s
There has been a number of succssful China-to-Hollywood crossover stories recently - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and even Jackie Chan co-starring with Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. Chinese-made movies go on to enjoy box-office success and Oscar nominations, while Bollywood movies continue to go largely ignored by the American film industry. An article in this month’s issue of Little India magazine asks, “Why?”
One suggestion is that while China produces innovative blockbusters like Crouching Tiger, Bollywood churns out poorly-executed formulaic musicals or rehashed remakes. At Cannes this year, not one Indian film placed in any category of the festival, although Indian actress Nandita Das was on the jury. And while Chinese actors like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Michelle Yeoh have successfully broke into Hollywood, Aishwarya Rai is the only Indian actress attempting to crossover. Chinese directors Ang Lee and John Woo have both met acclaim in Hollywood with Chinese-made films, but Indian directors like M. Night Shayamalan of The Sixth Sense definitely veers as far as possible from Bollywood in his films. It seems that most Indian directors are only trying to appeal to desis, but if Chinese films can appeal to audiences worldwide, why can’t Bollywood’s?