This Eid was supposed to be a very Pakistani Eid as before the holy month of Ramadan, there were only four Pakistani movies in line to be released in cinema houses. These four movies were Main Hoon Shahid Afridi, Waar, Ishq Khuda and Josh. Waar and Main Hoon Shahid Afridi rolled back due to the fact that competition was deemed quite tough and good response from the audience was not expected.
There wasn’t any Indian movie scheduled to be released on Eid but nonetheless Chennai Express was released. The release of this movie is total violation of rules because the occasion of Eid was reserved for home productions. This is the reasons producers and cinema lovers were all feeling happy because the sense of own-ness was there.
On Eid day Chennai Express was being shown at many theatres and it stood first amongst all the movies. It is doing business due to glamour, popular music, modern filmography techniques and big names in its cast.
Story and plot of the movie are not exceptional. Rather they can be considered mediocre as concluded by the viewers. Some even called it pathetic but what to do with our obsessed cinema owners, exhibitors and cinema-going community? They are so obsessed with Indian Bollywood that they welcome the film whole heartedly. Ishq Khuda and Josh were badly affected in terms of business due to the release of Chennai Express.
Ishq Khuda has a very unique genre as it employs the concept of Sufi-ism while Josh unveiled the struggle of crushed people against the feudal system. These movies had story, plot, audio-visual content and best actors from Pakistani film and TV industry were appearing in these movies. The issues they worked on in these movies were very real and connected to what we see in Pakistan.
Censor board is fully involved in creating this dilemma because without them issuing the censor certificate before Eid, the film Chennai Express would not have released.
Viewers have mixed views regarding Main Hoon Shahid Afridi and Waar postponement. One group think that it is a good step that they saved the movies for later times and did not compete with Chennai Express while other group think that they should have competed and should not be afraid of the Indian movies competition.
In order to come out of inferiority complex Pakistani film producers should not be afraid of the competition given to them by Bollywood and they should change this psyche. This is the way to glorify Lollywood once again.
