A Milestone In World Cinema

On Monday, India's hit drama Dangal picked up an additional 2.5 crore rupees ($390,000) from multiplexes across China, pushing its worldwide gross theatrical total past the magical 2,000 crore mark.

That's 20 billion rupees, billion with a "b. It's a milestone no Indian film has ever reached before, an achievement that calls for both celebration and reflection.

Dangal is inspired by the true-life story of a frustrated former wrestler, played by Aamir Khan, who lives out his life's ambition vicariously through his daughters by training them to become internationally competitive wrestlers. Through both example and sacrifice, he teaches the girls to reach for the impossible, to achieve far beyond the limits that they themselves and their society have placed upon them. Crafted by writer-director Nitesh Tiwari, Dangal's heartfelt exploration of father-daughter relationships, parental sacrifice and pursuing one's dreams against seemingly impossible odds have been critical to its giant embrace by audiences around the world.

The Dangal phenomenon is not just a story about box office numbers, though the numbers are extraordinary on so many levels. Among other milestones, Dangal has become the fifth highest-grossing non-English film in history, the highest-grossing live actions sports movie of 2017, and the biggest non-Hollywood import ever released in China.

Beyond the numbers, Dangal's accomplishments also extend to cultural achievement, to enabling Indian cinema to take a major step forward on the international stage. The film has contributed to India's evolutionary advance in creating movies capable of reaching and appealing to vast new audiences, and to delighting millions of foreign movie lovers with stories that are uniquely Indian but at the same time powerfully universal.

Together with the epic, effects-driven action-fantasy film Baahubali: The Conclusion, Dangal comprised half of a one-two punch that pioneered new ground for Indian cinema. As the biggest, most expensive, and most ambitious Indian film to date, Baahubali shattered expectations of what India's movies could look like and how well they could perform financially. Baahubali proved that there are no limits to what an Indian movie can achieve, both in visual scope and emotional impact, given the right creative, technical and financial resources. It showed that India can create blockbuster franchises every bit as thrilling and captivating as those made by Hollywood.