Baahubali has been a phenomenal success in India and all over where there is huge Indian diaspora. But they weren’t the only place where the film had released and it had released in various other markers as well like European countries, South-East Asia and China very recently. The film, unfortunately, had been a failure in all these markets. So where did the film go wrong?
One can tell many excuses like lack of proper screens or competition etc but they are what they are just excuses. A closer look at our home turf and performance of Bichagadu amidst heavy summer competition would show that a film loved will survive no matter what. So the real point here is are we avoiding the very simple assumption that Baahubali may have been an ordinary film to people in these markets, especially China?
Remember China is the land that produced Oscar-winning epic period action movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero and Red Cliff. It’s a genre that is seen very regularly and made on the much grander scale there. Could that be the reason for the lack of enthusiasm among Chinese audience despite good promotions? Baahubali wowed the Indian audience because nothing on such scale was seen before but it was exactly the opposite case in China. Let’s hope the second part offers the non-Indian audience something unique within the genre that they have not seen before. Otherwise, it might be a repeat of this poor performance all over again next time as well.
