'Pathaan' fever grips Bangladesh as SRK blockbuster becomes first Indian movie shown in country in 50 years

Thousands flocked to cinemas in Dhaka on Friday as Shah Rukh Khan's blockbuster Pathaan hit the big screens, the first Bollywood movie to get a full release in Bangladesh in more than half a century.

The action-packed spy thriller smashed box office records when it opened in India in January and the star has a huge fan following around the world.

But Dhaka banned films from its neighbour soon after its independence in 1971, in the face of lobbying from local movie-makers, despite India backing it in its independence war with Pakistan.

"I am so excited because a Hindi film is being released in Bangladesh for the first time," said Sazzad Hossain, 18, at a cineplex in the capital.

"We are all Shah Rukh Khan fans. For the first time I'll watch Shah Rukh Khan on a giant screen."

Bangladeshi cinemas have gone into steep decline, with poor-quality local films unable to match Bollywood's glitz and glamour or draw audiences, and the ageing Shakib Khan its only bankable star.

Some movie houses even switched to illegally showing pornography to try to remain viable, but more than 1,000 have shut their doors in the last 20 years, many of them to be converted to shopping centres or apartments.

At the Modhumita Cinema Hall, once Dhaka's most luxurious movie theatre, heroin addicts sat outside this week in front of posters for Jinn, a newly released Bangladeshi movie.

"I haven't seen such a poor crowd in many years," said one theatre employee. "Only a few rows have been filled up. Nobody watches these local art movies or films with poor storylines."

Cinemas used to be a mainstay of Bangladeshi social life.

"This hall was like a great meeting place of the Old Dhaka community," Pradip Narayan told AFP at the Manoshi Complex, a 100-year-old movie theatre turned into a market in 2017.

"Women used to come in the night to watch films here. Our mothers and sisters from neighbouring areas would come here, and when the show ended at midnight or 12:30 at night, it looked like a fair here.

"A woman even gave birth to a child in this cinema hall. Such was the craze for movies back then."

Authorities attempted to lift the ban on Indian movies in 2015 when two Bollywood hits -- Wanted and The Three Idiots — were screened, but protests by local movie stars forced theatres to stop the shows.

The government finally issued a decree last month allowing the import of 10 movies a year from India or South Asian nations.

"In Pakistan the number of cinemas came down to 30-35 once. Then they allowed importing Indian Hindi films," Information Minister Hasan Mahmud said.

"The number of cinemas has since risen to about 1,200 and the standard of Pakistani films also improved."

"I feel very bad," he said. "I was waiting for many days to watch Shah Rukh Khan on a big screen."