Kuch kuch hota hai in Korea

Shah Rukh Khan has a dedicated fan following east of India.

Just ask Kim Min Young. The girl from Seoul has an infectious joie de vivre that makes her eyes crinkle shut every time she bubbles in laughter. But she is also a gritty crusader and Bollywood's best bet in Korea.

The 25-year-old, on her third consecutive annual trip to India, is fighting to popularise Hindi films, along with a band of 20 faithfuls in Seoul. They have even formed a club called In Young Sa Mo, which roughly translates to Indian Movie Lovers' Club. "We have a membership of 10,000-plus, but we are the active ones," she explains. All of them swear by Shah Rukh Khan.

Kim stumbled upon Bollywood during a study trip to China. "They were showing Devdas on a world cinema programme on TV. I was learning Chinese so I could pick up the dubbed dialogues," says Kim. The experience climaxed with the song Silsila yeh chahat ka. "I was astonished at the scenes and the way they (Aishwarya Rai and company) moved. I had never experienced such a fantasy," the Korean gushes. Thus started her search for Hindi films in the city of Xian. "In China, you get every kind of film — pirated," she grins, explaining how she landed DVDs of Asoka and Veer-Zaara, both being SRK films by coincidence alone.

Initially, she found Shah Rukh "not handsome at all, only different, though his acting was impressive". But all that changed with more films. "Looks-wise, Arjun Rampal is the best but overall, no one comes near Shah Rukh."

Back home, she dug out a band of Bollywood buffs. The president, Jung Gwang Hyun, had quit his job to give more time to the club with its one-point agenda. The Bollywood brigade's biggest hurdle proved to be not Hindi, but Tamil. "Koreans have two kinds of impressions about Indian films — one of masterpieces like Ray, which are somewhat boring; and another of Tamil films of Rajanikanth, which are so crude that people treat them like cartoons. We had to tell them that there is another kind of film."

An intense campaign followed. The members met, ordered DVDs over the Net (each costs $40-50), edited the best scenes and uploaded them. But it was not easy. "Some vicious people were also circulating Rajanikanth clips." This made one member of the club undertake a mammoth project. She picked up a sequence from Bhool Bhulaiyaa, found out the corresponding clips from the film's Malayalam and Tamil originals and posted them together on YouTube. "In the Hindi movie's murder scene, there is just a scream and blood on the face of Vidya Balan. But in the Tamil version, Rajanikanth cuts off the dancer's head and kicks it. It is horrible," she protests.

Kim herself undertook to translate Veer-Zaara. Armed with lessons from an expatriate Bihari as her Hindi tutor, she saw the film 22 times till she could come up with the Korean sub-titles. "No-one will like it if it is sub-titled in English," she shrugs.

The club's trump card remains Devdas, with which a newcomer is baptised to Bollywood. Its website, www.indiamovie.co.kr, is full of SRK videos. Every week, the core group sees three-four movies. Only the approved ones find place in the club's library. Members wear a T-shirt which bears images of Preity Zinta and Aishwarya other than SRK. "Boys love Preity while Aishwarya is famous."