Recently Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was screened at the Japanese parliamnet making it the first ever Hindi film to be screened. The movie also opened at 60 odd theatres all across Japan and made it to No.4 on the Japanese Top 10.
This project is backed by the Indian NGO India Center, which is based in Tokyo. We as Indians are doing very little with Japan as compared to other countries like Korea, China, Bangladesh and for that matter even Pakistan, says Vibhav Upadhyay, the president of Tokyo based India Center. The plan was to take Aishwariya Rai to Japan as India's Cultural Ambassador. On the agenda was her personal meet with the PM of Japan besides a special screening for 400 members of the parliament.
Ash who had earlier agreed to come has refused because of her busy shooting schedules and her other commitments. Ash who is unfortunately already chock-a-block with work in her phone call promised that she would certainly visit Japan in a future date. She would also be sending a special two minutes video message to the PM of Japan and the people of Japan. This message will be shown on major TV networks in Japan.
I only wished she could have come to Japan as the media is very keen in this movie and Aishwarya Rai,” says Upadhyay.
The Japanese people though have not translated this movie (it is subtitled) - they have called it Mimora and this could well go in the history books that for a Bollywood movie a foreign language track has been specially recorded. The Japanese track is a beautiful melody with an ambient feel which is called &Hodie Christus Nas Est and is sung by singer Melani Ross from Japan.
The film, starring Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai, and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, flew into the 19th place on the box office charts in North America when released. In the US and Canada, it had grossed $400000 in the first week. In England, where the movie started with 20 screens, it grossed $ 86,000 and was ranked 9th. Now it is Japan's turn!
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