BEIJING: Aamir Khan's movie "Secret Superstar" will release in China on Friday and is expected to make waves in the country where his "Dangal" raked in USD 190 million, the highest earning by any Indian film abroad.
Aamir is hugely popular in China where craze for Indian movies is ever growing. "Dangal", a story about a man who trains his daughters to become wrestlers, is a household name in China.
Such is the success of "Dangal" that it has arguably become synonymous with India in China. So much so that Chinese President Xi Jinping told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he liked the movie.
It is to be seen if "Secret Superstar" will storm the box office in China the way "Dangal" did in 2017.
The latest movie stars Aamir and Zaira Wasim. In "Dangal", Zaira enacts Aamir's teenaged eldest daughter who stuns her male opponents by defeating them in wrestling.
In "Secret Superstar", the Kashmiri actress again plays a teenage girl who dreams of becoming a singer. The film is about how she fulfils her dreams by keeping her identity hidden.
Aamir's movies like "PK" and "3 Idiots" have also done well in China.
"I am excited (about the movie). The first thing I will do when I reach Chengdu is to watch 'Secret Superstar'," Cairang Lamu, a college student in her 20s, told IANS from Qinghai province over the phone.
She studies in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.
"Can't wait to watch it. Indian movies also do well in China thanks to the poor quality of Chinese films," said an official of a big conglomerate in China.
"That's why China does not allow every foreign movie to release because good movies will destroy its film industry," the official, who didn't want to be named, told IANS.
Wary of "outside influence," China has a quota on the number of overseas movies that can be screened in the country each year.