I saw the Indian hit movie 3 Idiots recently in an unusual
location: a cineplex in Hong Kong. Very rarely do Bollywood flicks make
the city's commercial circuit — the conventional wisdom holds that they
do not appeal to local audiences. Yet my Sunday morning matinee was 80%
filled, mostly with Chinese of all ages. Some took the movie at face
value: the zany antics of Indian college kids. But the majority of
viewers, it seemed to me, got the universal moral about breaking free
from social straitjackets. They laughed when they were meant to, and
didn't when they weren't. While the foreign 3 Idiots was a box-office monster, 1911, a China-backed war docudrama starring hometown celebrity Jackie Chan, bombed. Go figure: India 1, China 0.
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