China’s latest box office smash highlights plight of cancer patients forced to go underground to buy life-saving drugs from India
Chinese version of the Dallas Buyers Club based on a true story shines a spotlight on the difficulty cancer suffers face in securing cheap and safe medication
A tear-jerking dark comedy loosely based on the real-life stories of leukaemia patients walking on the wrong side of the law to access live saving generic Indian drugs has become an instant hit.
Dying to Survive – dubbed as the Chinese version of the Dallas Buyers Club – instantly soared to number one at the Chinese box office last week.
Officially released on Thursday after a series of previews in theatres since last month, the movie had brought in 488 million yuan (US$73.4 million) by Friday evening.
Audiences said the movie had been a rare realistic movie that spoke to their hearts. Some stayed on and wept when the film ended during a screening in Beijing on Friday afternoon while others had tears in their eyes as they left the cinema.
“I am a man and I cried,” said Xiao Ning. “I haven’t seen such a realistic domestic movie for years. The hero made the choice to do the right thing and paid the price by going to jail. It was a very touching film”
The movie tells the story of a fictitious Shanghai businessman Cheng Yong, played by actor and director Xu Zheng.
In the movie Cheng helps save the lives of chronic myelocytic leukaemia (CML) patients by smuggling cheap unapproved genetic drugs from India into China, but is sentenced to five years in prison.