Bollywood or Bust

By P.Ramakrishnan

Decked out in suits, saris and salwars, Hong Kong's Indian community will get together next weekend for the screening of an epic Bollywood musical as part of the annual Diwali festival. And full houses are anticipated for the three-hour India-Pakistan cross-border love story Veer Zara.

Bollywood king Shahrukh Khan leads a cast that includes Preity Zinta and Rani Mukherjee, with India's finest director/producer, Yash Chopra, at the helm. Rumours that the epic will be the 72-year-old filmmaker's last directorial venture have only raised expectations - and the price of the tickets. At $150 to $180 a head, the screening at Chinachem will be one of the city's more expensive cinema experiences.

Catering to Hong Kong's lovers of all things Bollywood has become a risky business. But the woman behind the Veer Zara screening, Deepa Datwani of Cineworld, is unperturbed: "The tickets have to be high because, unlike English films, the theatres don't share the profits with us. It's a flat price. Whether someone's in a seat or not, we're still paying for it and, us to make any money, we need at least 60 per cent of the hall to be full - which is never guaranteed. And we had to bid highly to secure the rights for the film in Hong Kong because competition has intensified." Indeed it has.

The venues for screening of Hindi films change regularly - from the massive Ocean theatre to the plush exhibition halls at the Hong Kong Convention and Exihibition Centre, and the cost of tickets has remained steep, regardless of the screening location.

"The Hindi movie industry is so unpredictable," Datwani says. "They change release dates at the last minute, so we can't book in advance when it's cheaper. In the past, we've lost deposits because the film in India gets delayed in production and we have to cancel our bookings.

"The venue is the most difficult thing we have to deal with. Whatever is available at short notice, we have to stick to that."

The first Hindi film to be screened in Hong Kong was Hum Aaapke Hain Kaun back in 1994 when, much to the surprise of organisers, all the $100 tickets were sold. Since then, Bollywood's best have made it to our shores reasonably regularly, with screenings held on average about once every four months.

Pamela Kapoor and Kamalesh Kalra were among the first to bring Indian films to local audiences and showed them at the Hong Kong Convention Centre, the Arts Centre and in universities. But they have now backed out of the game.

"There's too much competition, getting a cinema is so difficult and pricey," Kalra says. "And with the success of Indian movies internationally, the prices of buying Indian films have gone up, and we weren't seeing the returns in Hong Kong."

Meghna Agarwal, another organiser of local screenings whose father is a film distributor in India, imported Kal Ho Na Ho last year. "We didn't make a huge profit. We didn't have full houses for all our shows, so we just about broke even. For Indian films, there's nothing like word of mouth publicity, so most of our audiences we get through sending out e-mails and faxes. Advertising in papers and magazines doesn't help much."

Datwani agrees. "People have a general idea of what a film is like. If the cast is good and the music is good then they can predict what the film will be like. But it's a big risk on our part.

"Dev, which had a great cast and good music wasn't that successful. Audiences found the film too slow and attendance for later shows fell drastically."

Not unlike the Hollywood box-office, the only real money made is in the first weekend. "Two days after a film is released in India, DVDs of the film are easily available in Hong Kong. We have to show the film in the first few days, otherwise people will rather pay for $20 for a pirated disc - no matter how good the print - than pay $120," says Agarwal.

Will the gamble pay off for her latest venture? Datwani has her fingers crossed. "It's a big banner, the director is well known and it's a top cast, Shahrukh movies always do well and our biggest success was his last film, Main Hoon Na. With English subtitles, we expect anyone who's a fan of a musical to turn up."