Aamir Khan’s PK becomes India’s most successful film

Indian actor Aamir Khan breaks the Bollywood worldwide record for the fourth time with controversial Bollywood movie PK.

It can’t be disputed now: Aamir Khan has the global touch. His satire on world religion, PK – in 16th place on this week’s chart – breaches the $90m mark worldwide this week and in doing so becomes the highest grossing Bollywood film ever. It’s the fourth time he has claimed that record, after the Memento-inspired thriller Ghajini ($30m, 2008), college drama 3 Idiots ($62m, 2009) and action extravaganza Dhoom 3 ($85m, 2013). In last week’s 2014 roundup, I speculated that the $100m Bollywood wasn’t far enough – right around the corner, it transpires. What gives the Khan edge in global terms? One factor is that he has a quirkiness and innocence on screen that sets him apart from cookie-cutter Bollywood glam gods – things on show in PK, in which his Mr Bean-like alien gets to grips with the absurdities of organised religion on planet Earth. Khan’s star vehicles seem more substantial and reflective than the bulk of the Indian mainstream (3 Idiots, in which he played a similar kind of holy fool, was a plea for better educational standards). Perhaps this gives them greater resonance with a diaspora inclined to getting impatient with the old masala clichés.

Of course, the PK phenomenon has strong foundations in India, where it has also become the most successful local film ever (currently on $48m, passing Dhoom 3’s $41m). Not only does it delve headfirst into the syncretic melee of different faiths in that country, it takes direct aim at “godmen”, the guru figures who proliferate there. PK actually had a relatively slow start on home turf – well under Happy New Year’s record-breaking opening in October – but the film’s quality and the controversy generated by the subject matter has seen it make up the gap in no time. Despite protests by some Hindu groups, the film isn’t that provocative, though; more of a playful shove in the direction of greater tolerance and a more questioning attitude to institutionalised religion. So there’s definitely scope for the film to appeal to spiritually concerned non-Indians, too – in China for starters, where 3 Idiots and Dhoom 3 both built a following for Khan. No word of a release there yet.

Thanks to Phil Hoad from The Guardian for this fantastic Bollywood news article.