Promotional material of Drishyam 2 Photo: Courtesy of Douban
Chinese netizens have expressed confidence that the sequel to the blockbuster
2019 film
Sheep Without a Shepherd will be completed on schedule as
Drishyam 2, the sequel to the hit
2013 Indian Malayalam-language film
Drishyam, was released in February.
Sheep Without a Shepherd is a remake of the
2013 film directed by Jeethu Joseph, which also spawned an Indian Hindi-language remake of the same name from Nishikant Kamat in
2015. All three films tell the story of a father who fights against police using the anti-reconnaissance techniques learned from watching movies in order to protect his daughter.
According to Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan,
Sheep Without a Shepherd earned 1.33 billion yuan($
206 million) in the Chinese mainland, making it the ninth highest-earning Chinese film in
2019.
"As a remake of
Drishyam, the success of
Sheep Without a Shepherd lies in its construction of a humanistic environment familiar to Chinese audiences and telling a story that could happen to them, which gave it emotional resonance. Meanwhile, it put aside the original film by adding more humanistic characteristics to make the story more reasonable," Shi Wenxue, a film critic and professor at the Beijing Film Academy, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Due to the high popularity of
Sheep Without a Shepherd, both Indian films rose in popularity among Chinese moviegoers, who have given the films over 8/10 scores on Chinese review site Douban.
While the two Indian versions have scored high among Chinese audiences,
Drishyam 2, which debuted online on February 19 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has not been able to compete as well as its predecessors, only earning a 7.3/10 score on Douban.
"The problem of
Drishyam 2 is that the plot has twists, but compared with
Drishyam, there are too many twists and so the theme gets lost and the pace of the film is slightly slowed down," according to a review from the popular WeChat film blog duliyudianying.
Some Chinese fans of the original film have recently started debating on social media whether
Sheep Without a Shepherd 2 would follow in the steps of
Drishyam 2.
"Just like the sequels to
Finding Mr Right,
The White Storm and Overheard,
Sheep Without a Shepherd 2 is more likely to keep the same name but tell a totally new story. We have been constantly improving our original ability, no need to keep remaking," said Shi.
Xiao Fuqiu, a film critic based in Shanghai, told the Global Times that rather than try and remake
Drishyam 2, it would be better to produce a new remake of some other Bollywood blockbusters like
Andhadhun and
Ittefaq.
According to Maoyan,
Sheep Without a Shepherd 2 is scheduled to be filmed in October and November overseas and will be released during summer
20
22. The cast will see the same actors of the first film return, but they will be playing different characters as the second film will not be a direct sequel to the original story.