While both films have a struggling young entrepreneur heading to China, screenwriter Niren Bhatt clarifies that the Indian film is based on author Parinda Joshi’s unpublished book and not the American film

By Mayur Lookhar

Maddock Films, and Jio Studios today unveiled the trailer of their upcoming Diwali comedy Made in China (2019).  The trailer has got a warm response so far. National award winning director Mikhil Musale’s  maiden Hindi film tells the story of a struggling Gujarati businessman Raghuvir Mehta aka Raghu (Rajkummar Rao) who makes it big by importing a Made in China aphrodisiac that’s mixed in a packaged soup.   

Author Parinda Joshi, Karan Vyas share the story and screenplay credits with the director.  Noted screenwriter Niren Bhatt is credited for the additional screenplay and dialogues.

Made in China is not a solitary title as there few films in the past. Malayalam superstar Mohanlal’s film Ittymaani: Made in China (2019) released in early September recently. 

It was one little known American film Made in China (2009) – released in 2010  – that caught our attention. While doing basic research about the film, we found a key similarity. Both the American film and the Bollywood film have a struggling protagonist who heads to China for business.

When contacted screenwriter Niren Bhatt clarified that their film has nothing in common with the American film, which he’s never even heard about until this writer brought to his notice.

“I have no idea about the film you mentioned.  Our film is based on a book The Tiger In The Soup by [author] Parinda Joshi.  The book is not published yet. The producer has bought the rights of the book and they decided to release the film first. Harper Collins will be publishing the book later”

After reading little bit about the American film, we learnt that director Judi Krant’s film is about a struggling young American man Johnson [Jackson Kuehn] who is a self-styled novelty inventor.  Later we saw the trailer of Krant’s film which showed us that the Johnson comes up with an idea of a novelty hygiene product but finds no takers in America. And so he heads to China looking for a manufacturer but things don’t go as planned.

Bhatt initially claimed ignorance to the American film, but when we mentioned about its producer IFC Films, Bhatt then remarked, “Oh, that film.”

After telling him about the story of the American film, Bhatt said, “No, our film is different. There is no such thing like this in our film.  Here he [Raghu] goes to China and gets an idea (from the Chinese business partner)”

Based on the trailers of the two film, barring the visit to China by a struggling businessman, there doesn’t seem to be much commonality in the two films. Perhaps, one will have to watch the American film to find out its true content.

Musale’s Made in China is set to be released on 25 October.

Watch the trailer of Indian and the American Made in China, respectively below.