How India’s answer to James Bond conquered Australian cinemas
The plot of the Indian film Pathaan could have easily come from the James Bond, Jason Bourne or Mission: Impossible series: a secret agent comes back from exile to take on a terrorist organisation threatening to wreak havoc with a biological weapon.
The high-energy action-thriller also has, just like many of those films, a ripped hero, chase scenes involving cars, motorbikes, and jet-powered wingsuits, spectacularly implausible stunts, countless fight scenes, exotic locations around the world and a femme fatale who, when not lounging by the pool in a bikini, happens to be a daredevil martial arts master and weapons expert.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone in Indian spy hit Pathaan. Credit:Yash Raj Films
But being a Hindi-language film starring Bollywood idol Shah Rukh Khan, Pathaan also has two song-and-dance numbers, a villain known only as Jim who says cheesy lines like “give your Mother India my last goodbye” and is screening in cinemas with an interval after a cliffhanger.
In three weeks, this unlikely box office contender has quietly taken more than the much higher profile Hollywood films The Fabelmans, Tar, Babylon, The Whale and Knock at the Cabin to become one of the year’s biggest new releases.
Its success – taking $4.5 million at the local box office – shows the rising impact of south Asian audiences in Australian cinemas and India’s increasing sophistication in building Marvel and DC style franchises with characters crossing over from shared universes.
The chief executive of distributor Mind Blowing Films, Mitu Bhowmick Lange, has been surprised by how popular Pathaan has been.
“I knew it would do well because it’s a big action film from Yash Raj studios and it’s directed by Siddharth Anand, so it had a lot of muscle behind it,” she says.
“Then, of course, it had one of the most loved superstars in the world, Shah Rukh Khan, who was coming back after four years.
“So I did know it would do well, but I think it’s surpassed everyone’s expectations. It opened number two to Avatar and, for three weeks straight, we’ve had the highest screen average.
“It’s taken more than Babylon and all these other big Hollywood films, so it’s just been beyond remarkable.”
Skirting regional politics: John Abraham and Shah Rukh Kahn in Pathaan.Credit:Yash Raj Films
Khan plays Pathaan, an agent for India’s foreign intelligence agency who joins Pakistan intelligence agent Rubina Mohsin (Deepika Padukone) to take down a terrorist (John Abraham) who has been hired by a Pakistani general wanting vengeance on India.
It’s a film that was controversial in India before it was even released.
Right-wing Hindu nationalists burned effigies of Khan, called for a boycott, and tore down posters after a music video cut from the film showed Padukone wearing a saffron bikini. They considered it an insult given it’s a sacred Hindu colour.
India’s film classifier required minor changes before Pathaan was released to become a smash hit last month.
The plot skirts the region’s vexed politics so successfully that The Indian Express noted that Pathaan has “got Indians across the world to cheer for a Pakistani ex-ISI agent and Pakistanis to cheer for a Bollywood superstar”.
The most successful Australian cinemas for Pathaan have been in suburbs closer to south Asian communities rather than in the city – Hoyts Chadstone and Village Sunshine in Melbourne and Event Parramatta and Hoyts Blacktown in Sydney.
Lange says Indian films are now appealing to more than just the country’s diaspora because they are “so joyous and fun” and have a unique cinematic language.
“We have a huge following among [communities with backgrounds from] Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Dubai, all the UAE belt, Malaysia and Indonesia,” she says.
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Email Garry Maddox at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @gmaddox.
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