Ang Lee’s critically-acclaimed film Life of Pi has made waves in China since its release in late November. In its first three weeks, the film has raked in $ 68 million — that is around two-thirds of its total foreign earnings. As the Hollywood Reporter reports, this marks the only second instance of an American film making more in China than in the U.S: the previous instance was the release of the 3D version of Titanic.
The success of Pi in China comes against the odds. In recent months, the Chinese industry has voiced growing concerns that domestic films were losing out to foreign imports in the box office, with their share falling to a record low of 40 per cent last year.
The film authorities have gone out of their way to make life difficult for the Ang Lee film. In only its second week of release, the film was booted out of prime time slots in IMAX theatres to make way for the State-backed Back to 1942 — a film by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang. The historical epic tells the tragic story of the famine of 1942.
Pi has, however, continued to attract a far bigger audience, earning rave reviews from Chinese bloggers for the creativity of both the narrative and Lee’s treatment. “Many viewers like Life of Pi, a movie directed by Chinese Hollywood director Ang Lee, but do not like Back to 1942, another movie by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang,” wrote the Beijing News, “because faith saved cruel reality in the former while the cruel reality smashed all beliefs in the latter.”
-ANANTH KRISHNAN
Guru and sishya
Yoga guru and spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and a host of disciples, including actor Vinod Khanna, were in the Maldives in the first week of December. Asked about his visit, at the height of a crisis involving an Indian multinational company running the Male airport, Ravi Shankar, turning back, gestured: “Followers.”
The entourage left for the top-of-the-line Shangri La resort in the far-south Addu Atoll for a retreat. This is the property where the Heads of State were accommodated during the 2011 SAARC summit. Later, after he came back to the capital, Maldivian President Mohamed Waheed hosted a dinner in his honour. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was seated at the head table, between the Indian High Commissioner to the Maldives, Dnyaneshwar Mulay, and Dr. Waheed.
Mulay has been at the receiving end of the ire of the present government. In fact, at a recent public meeting, a senior official lashed out against Mulay, who has been India’s High Commissioner in Male for nearly four years. I asked Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Tamil if he attempted to cool the tempers; he smiled and responded in the same language: “I am always willing to contribute in any way I can.”
Seated on another table, the affable Vinod Khanna obliged everyone who came up to him and requested him to pose for a picture.
- R.K. RADHAKRISHNAN
Music from India
Pak Army’s yes to Bollywood raises many an eyebrow.
Such is the appetite in Pakistan for all things Bollywood that not a day goes by without television news networks featuring something on the Indian film industry. And it is not just the private television channels that have been bitten by this bug. Even FM 96 — a radio station run by the Pakistan Army — is not immune to this trend and has a generous offering of Hindi music in its programming.
This has raised many an eyebrow in the country considering that for years the public broadcaster, Radio Pakistan, was not allowed to air Indian music, and the omni-present security establishment was held responsible for such a policy as it had a major role in developing the anti-India narrative in this country. But when it came to launching its own radio station to challenge the propaganda unleashed on natives by terrorists in remote areas of the country, the Pakistan Army saw it fit to include Bollywood music in its programming.
- Anita Joshua
