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Hollywood no threat to Indian cinema: Amitabh Bachchan
08th June 2008 23.00 IST
By Agencies

Acknowledging the popularity of Hollywood cinema in India, Bollywood mega superstar Amitabh Bachchan has said that dubbed versions might have enjoyed success with the audience in India, but it posed no threat to Indian films.

Hollywood might have overshadowed French and Italian film industries, but cultural differences with Indian audience makes it tough for it to side step Indian films in their own backyard, he said.

"Films like Spiderman, Titanic are successful in India because there are no references to culture, family relationships. But the way Hollywood had virtually destroyed French or Italian cinema, Indian film industry is not threatened," Bachchan said in Bangkok today.

The Big B, who is in Bangkok as part of the IIFA weekend in Thailand, admitted that Hollywood offers competition to Indian films, but also said that Bollywood could offer "resistance" to it.

"Spiderman was released in several Indian languages which also impacted local language releases. There are many Hollywood studios setting up base in India presently," he said.

"But we can put up a resistance to Hollywood competition and competition is good," Bachchan said during a media interaction.

Bachchan also expressed happiness over the change witnessed in western media's perception of Indian films, which were earlier labelled as too 'escapist' and 'unnatural'.

"On our part, we have never stepped away from escapist cinema. It has been our USP. The West now enjoys our films because of these very same elements," he said.

"Together with the Indian expats and Diaspora, Indian films are watched by nearly 3.6 billion people. But, now people of other origins are also taking a liking to our kind of films," Bachchan said.

Replying to questions over whether the release of his latest film Sarkar Raj , which was premiered in Bangkok, was timed to coincide with the IIFA awards, he said, "it is just a coincidence".

The brand ambassador of IIFA also said that besides promoting Hindi films in foreign countries, the body also has regional films on its agenda.

"We started out with Hindi movies but also felicitated prominent film personalities from South and screened their films as part of the IIFA weekend," said the brand ambassador of IIFA.

"But, having awards for and promotion of regional films is definitely one of the plans of IIFA," Bachchan added.

Speaking about Indian cinema's journey from an entity not acceptable to the society to a virtually parallel culture, the most revered face of Bollywood said Indian films had increasingly become a reference point for the country.

"Indian cinema has virtually become a parallel culture. Talk of India with a foreigner and the debate virtually centres around Indian films," Bachchan said, adding that IIFA has succeeded in generating interest and curiosity in the west about Indian cinema.

Bachchan also noted that the younger generation of audience and filmmakers were aggressive and favoured better quality cinema, but said the quality of films in India was still no match for what Hollywood produced.

"But, we still have a long way to go in terms of technique and content to match it. Our content is based on simple ideas," he said.

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