Pop culture often leads the charge in introducing one country or culture to another – along the way challenging stereotypes, reinforcing them, or creating new ones. Movies and TV shows in particular often lead the pack. My former language partner once asked me – completely seriously – if it was common for people to run naked across college campuses in America. This is what happens when you watch American Pie movies 1-6 (yup, six) too many times. Or even once.

Despite being neighbors, and being the world’s two most populous countries, exchange between China and India is often limited. A new movie by rising Bollywood star Akshay Kumar, backed by a partnership between an Indian studio and American movie giant Warner Bros., Chandni Chowk to China tried to change all that by bringing the cultures together in a singing, dancing, kungfu-fighting spectacular.

As evidenced by the flurry of acerbic reviews, many of which insisted on referencing food – the other most common experience of foreign cultures – the movie was widely disliked in China, India, the United States, and pretty much everywhere else it was seen. Critics and audiences weren’t enticed by what was described in the movie as “naan with noodles.” Though the movie may not have succeeded in melding Chinese characteristics with Bollywood blockbuster ones, CC2C did manage to succeed in uniting global audiences in their intense dislike for the film.

Some Chinese who saw the film reacted against it’s portrayal of China’s poor, the use of stock landmarks like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, and the similarity – albeit in a rather roundabout way – of the villain’s name to that of China’s current president. Indian audiences were dismayed by the plot and the quality of the tunes.

Western audiences combined the dislikes of both Chinese and Indian viewers in a sort of critical melting pot, or if you’ve adopted the newest preferred nomenclature, tossed salad. The Onion pulled no punches, describing the movie thusly, “Crass, schizophrenic, culturally insensitive, horribly paced, and shameless in its pandering to the lowest common denominator.” Over at Newsday, Frank Lovece managed a rather positive review, although it seems he have thought he was writing for the food section: “Less a Bollywood bonbon than a pan-Asian fusion dish, this combination of Indian musical and Chinese chopsocky is, nonetheless, delicious fun."

There was talk, before the movie came out, of there being a sequel to Chandni Chowk to China, but the future for a part two (potentially set in Africa if the final scene of the movie is any indication) seems to be dim given the decidedly lukewarm critical and commercial response to the first one. Nonetheless, there were many who enjoyed the film. Graeme Clark at Spinning Image advises viewers to, “look at it as an Indian variation on a Stephen Chow movie,” and there are also positive reviews on English and Chinese language websites. (Although some of the positive reviews are little confused: John Anderson in a complimentary piece published in Variety wrote, “If 'Chandni Chowk to China' were a person, it would need Valium.")

Whether or not it was a great movie, it’s important that there continue to be more popular movies – be they Hollywood, Bollywood or Chollywood – that attempt to cross borders. Obviously movies need to be taken with many, many grains of salt (that’s what the popcorn's for), and popular culture is often responsible for cultivating damaging stereotypes, particularly when it comes to the representation of minorities.

CC2C is itself an interesting cultural (and financial) experiment. It’s the first Bollywood movie filmed in China, and only the third Bollywood movie to have the backing of an American studio. The film features Shaw Brothers great Gordon Liu, now perhaps better known to viewers from his Kill Bill roles. American actor and stuntman Roger Yuan learned Hindi for his role as the vagrant former policeman whose lost his wife, his memory and his children, and now camps out at the Great Wall waiting for a great martial arts training montage to happen. (Yuan does his best to actively combat stereotypes in real life by holding both a science degree from UCLA and a black belt in a Chuck Norris-designed martial art. He’s also been middleweight champ in the United Fighting Arts Federation.)

Movie stereotypes are dangerous – just ask the poor guy who goes streaking shortly after arriving at an American university, because he watched the American Pie sextet and though it was commonplace. Nonetheless, it’s important for the sake of dialogue that these movies do happen, and that followers of the India-China relationship have something to concentrate on – other than articles about an impending war between the two countries. Maybe it’s just a reflection of my particular culinary predilections but “naan with noodles” sound awesome to me.
 

Related Links
At Taste of India in Beijing
Fall Movie Guide 2009
Kungfu Quotables – Learn Some Kickass Chinese

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