In only its first 72 hours on mainland movie screens, the Indian satirical comedy PK rode strong word of mouth to become the highest grossing Indian film in Chinese box office history.
Mind you, the hurdle to breaking the box office record wasn’t that high—these are not Transformers numbers we’re talking about. But still, a record is a record, and with its estimated $5.3 million (32.6 million RMB) weekend gross, the Bollywood blockbuster easily zipped past Dhoom 3’s $3.17 million 2014 PRC record gross to become the new Indian king of Chinese cinema.
The film stars Aamir Khan and was directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the same trio behind the 2011 hit 3 Idiots. That film held the Chinese box office crown for Indian films until it was dethroned last year by Dhoom 3, which also starred Khan.
PK tells the story of an alien who comes to Earth on a research mission, befriends a television journalist and questions religious dogmas and superstitions. The film became the highest-grossing Indian film of all time, the first to reach $100 million in box office revenue.The picture benefited from strong word of mouth in China, receiving an 8.2 rating and 94% “liked” approval on China’s movie rating site Douban. It out-earned the new Chinese rom-com release Love Without Distance to score second place for the weekend behind Avengers: Age of Ultron.
This article was originally published in Forbes.