Bollywood sports drama ‘Dangal’ depicts the real life story of a wrestler who trains his daughters to become world champions.

:: Bollywood star Aamir Khan’s sports drama ‘Dangal’ has taken the Chinese box office by storm. In its second week the Indian film has knocked off Disney’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ from the top spot.

‘Dangal’, depicts the real life story of a wrestler who trains his daughters to become world champions in wrestling.

It released in in around 7,000 screens in China as ‘Shuai Jiao Baba’, which means ‘Let’s Wrestle, Dad’, on May 5. China, the second-largest movie market after the US.

‘Dangal’ earned $32.5 million (Dh119.34 million) in its second week of release, giving it a 10-day cumulative of $59.7 million, according to media reports quoting Chinese entertainment date figures.

The cumulative in China is now on a par with film’s score, of $58.1 million, in India.

Exhibitors in China increased the screen count for Dangal to some 55,000 screenings per day on Saturday and Sunday.

Disney’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’, which opened on the same day as ‘Dangal’ and topped the box office in its first week, slipped to $15.8 million in its second week. After 10 days, it has a cumulative of $81.1 million.

‘Dangal’ becomes highest-grossing Bollywood movie

Indian movie star Aamir Khan’s latest blockbuster “Dangal” has become the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time, smashing his own record, trade analysts and producers said on Monday.

The wrestling drama, which is based on the true story of an Indian coach who trained his two daughters to become champion grapplers, has made 3.45 billion rupees ($50.59 million) in just three weeks, according to bollywoodhungama.com.

That is more than the previous top grosser – Khan’s science fiction film “PK”, which amassed 3.40 billion rupees during its entire run in 2014.

“This is our ninth film with Aamir Khan and with ‘Dangal’ we’ve broken our own record of ‘PK’,” Amrita Pandey, vice-president of studios at Disney India, told AFP via email.

“Dangal”, directed by Nitesh Tiwari, is based on the true story of wrestling coach Mahavir Singh Phogat who raised his daughters Geeta and Babita Phogat to become champion wrestlers.

Geeta won a gold medal for India at the 2010 Commonwealth Games while her sister topped the podium at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. “Dangal” is a Hindi word used to describe a wrestling competition.

Khan, 51, gained a lot of weight to play the role of Mahavir before quickly losing 25 kilograms to appear as a younger version of the coach elsewhere in the film.

The movie was released on December 23 and was India’s second hit wrestling film of 2016. “Sultan”, starring Salman Khan, came out in July, made 3.15 billion rupees and sits third on the all-time grossing list.