The Legend of Maula Jatt's China premiere reminded Bilal Lashari why cinema is cinema
He shared his thoughts on the unexpected love and warmth the film received and how he wished the rest of the team was at the premiere too.
The Legend of Maula Jatt, the blockbuster Pakistani film starring Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan and Hamza Ali Abbasi, has won two awards at the 7th Jackie Chan International Action Film Week.
Director Bilal Lashari made the announcement on Instagram with a post celebrating the team and the continued success of the 2022 film. The Jackie Chan Action Film Week, now an award show and celebration of its own, was originally part of Shanghai International Film Festival, started by Chan in 2015. The fifth edition was held in 2019. In 2021, the sixth edition celebrated the top 10 classic Chinese action films.
“Two awards, in the pouring rain, on a stage with Jackie Chan’s name on it. Still can’t quite believe this one,” he wrote.
“The Legend of Maula Jatt took home two honours at the closing ceremony of the 7th Jackie Chan International Action Film Week in Harbin, one of Asia’s biggest celebrations of action cinema. The Special Jury Award, and Best Art Direction,” he said, calling seeing his film alongside big names such as Mortal Kombat 2 and The Furious “wild”.
“An open air stage in Harbin, thousands in the crowd, and rain coming down through all of it. It had been on and off all evening, then my turn to go up, and of course that’s just when the sky really opened up. Soaked by the time I reached the mic, a stranger holding an umbrella overhead, trophy dripping, the whole arena lit up behind the rain. As a director you dream of building moments like that on set. This one just happened,” Lashari wrote in his caption.
He said the Art Direction award was special to him because it wasn’t his — it belonged instead to Namsa Abbasi and Hamza Bajwa. “What these two built wasn’t just sets and design, it was an entire world, and every scene of the film breathes because of them. Accepting it on their behalf, in the rain, on that stage… I wish they’d been there. This is yours. Fully deserved.”
He also gave a shoutout to producer Ammara Hikmat, who wasn’t in Harbin to receive the award either. “We felt your absence up there.”
The Jackie Chan International Action Film Week is named after the Chinese action star who inspired millions of starry-eyed children to get into action. One of those children was Lashari, who said he grew up on Chan’s films. “So to be on a stage with his name on it, representing Pakistan, and then to shake his hand and have him congratulate us in person, I never pictured any of this when we started,” he said.
“There’s really nothing that pulls people from every corner of the world together like a good action film. No subtitles needed, you just feel it. Thank you to Mr Jackie Chan, the organisers, and the jury for putting action, and the people who make it, on a stage as magnificent as this.”
He also thanked producer Nadeem Mandviwalla and his wife, calling them his “partners in crime through all these China adventures”.
“To our entire team, thank you. Every bit of this is yours. And to Pakistan, this one’s for you.”
While the celebration of Maula Jatt in China may seem rather delayed, the film only released in the country this past May. Lashari penned a note on Instagram after the Beijing premiere of the film, lauding the warmth they received from the press, the industry and the people in the room, something he “genuinely wasn’t prepared for”.
The love for the film in Pakistan is overwhelming, he mused, but different. “It’s wrapped up in everything else. The stars, the story, the years of waiting. Sometimes, as the director, you almost disappear inside all of that. Which is beautiful. But it’s a different feeling.”
In Beijing, none of that context existed, Lashari said. “They didn’t know our actors. They didn’t know our industry. They came in with nothing. And what came back was something pure. Just two of us who travelled a long way to share it, a director and a distributor, received like we’d brought something that mattered.”
That love and warmth reminded him of something he’d started to take for granted. “No platform, no algorithm, no TikTok can do what a cinema does. A darkened room, strangers sitting together, a story unfolding. Last night reminded me why cinema is cinema.”
The film stars Fawad and Mahira, Humaima Malick, Hamza Ali Abbasi, Gohar Rasheed, Faris Shafi and Ali Azmat, and is a reboot of the 1979 cult classic Maula Jatt, reimagining Punjab’s own superhero for a world audience.
The movie made Rs1 billion at the domestic box office and $10 million at the worldwide box office, as of January 2023, making it one of, if not the highest performing Pakistani films ever.