Producing more than 1,000 movies a year, India boasts the largest number of film works in the world. However, Indian films' influence in China is still nowhere near as close to that of films from the U.S. or other Asian countries.
Among the 90 or so films imported into China in 2016, only two were from India: Baahubali: The Beginning and Fan. This number falls far below that of other foreign countries such as the UK (13), Russia (7) and Japan (11). Even South Korea, whose currently worsening political relations with China have had a huge impact on its cultural exports to China, managed to export five films to the mainland in 2016.
The commercial performance of these two Indian films were disappointing as well. Baahubali, which had a $52 million budget and grossed in $47.3 million just in eight days in foreign markets in 2015, only earned a total of 7.50 million yuan ($1.09 million) in China. Fan's performance was even worse, earning a mere 1.53 million yuan.
So why did these two Indian films perform so poorly?
Quality certainly isn't an issue. Baahubali holds a 7.3/10 rating on Chinese movie site Mtime and a 7.2/10 on Chinese media review site Douban, while Fan has a 7.7/10 on Mtime and a 6.7/10 on Douban.
Market niche
For many Chinese filmgoers, when they think of Indian films, they think of Caravan, Noorie, or Awaara. Released in the Chinese mainland during the 1980s, the films left a decades-long impression on Chinese audiences even though they were dubbed into Chinese.
Knowledge of more recent films though is lacking.
Although the keyword "India film" gets 282 hits on Baidu, the most popular search engine in China, of the eight Indian films grouped under "the most popular" tag, one is actually a Chinese animated film while the other leads to a blank page.
On Douban, Indian films do not even have their own section. The same is also true on Chinese streaming platforms, such as iQiyi and Sohu, which are the main means Chinese use to watch films outside of cinemas.
Yet, there is a small niche audience in China that do enjoy Indian films. On Sina Weibo, there are several accounts with names such as "Indian film forum," "Sharing Indian films' song and dance scenes" or "We all love Indian films." However, even the most popular account has only a little more than 27,000 followers.
It seems that for most Chinese, Indian films are nothing more than a name.
Political factors
Cultural exchange is often influenced by politics.
Tan Zhen, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy who studies Indian film, told the Global Times that in the late 1970s and 1980s, when China began opening up to the world, films from Japan and India were very influential in the Chinese mainland.
However, entering the 1990s, the majority of imported films came from more politically dominant countries, such as the US and those in Europe, while Indian films went ignored.
"Other problems, including a long-lasting border dispute [with Indian] made it difficult to normalize cultural exchanges," Tan noted.
The low number of Indian films coming into China meant studies on the subject were rare.
According to Tan, currently only three to five scholars specialize in studying Indian film in the mainland, while he himself started only about three years ago.
As the political climate has improved, so too has cultural exchanges between the two countries.
In 2014 Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India, while a year later, in 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China. Since then, economic deals have been signed between the two nations, while cultural exchanges and cooperation has increased.
This has resulted in closer ties between the two countries' film industries. For example, three recent co-productions, Kung-Fu Yoga, Xuan Zang and Buddies in India, featured famous Chinese stars and numerous scenes shot in India in an attempt to introduce the country to Chinese audiences. Film imports have increased as well. From 2001 to 2013, only five Indian films were imported. However, two Indian films a year have been imported into the mainland starting from 2014.
Tan also pointed out that politics is not the only reason that Indian films have run into difficulty leaving their home country.
"Compared to Hollywood productions, which try to appeal to global audiences, Indian films are more focused on their own domestic market, which means these films are long and contain a lot singing and dancing," Tan commented.
Creative freedom
Though the number of Indian films released in China is still low, favorable audience reception has caused Chinese media and filmgoers to take notice.
An article published on view.news.qq.com - "How do Indian films manage to surpass Chinese films?" -analyzed the development of Indian films and determined two reasons why the Indian film industry has flourished in its home country: the industry's freedom to tackle different topics and its imagination.
"When I saw PK, I was surprised at how Indian films could make fun of society, politicians and people while still remain entertaining," Xiao Lingsu, a Chinese filmgoer, told the Global Times.
She noted that PK, a 2014 satirical sci-fi comedy, inspired her to seek out more Indian films, which have impressed her with their ability to tackle social topics.
"India established a film law in 1918 and has had a ratings system since 1952," Tan said, pointing out how guidelines such as these helped shape the Indian film industry and allowed it to grow.
He explained that he hopes China's newly implemented Chinese Film Industry Promotion Law will bring about similar improvements to the Chinese mainland film industry.