'We should try to sell our movies to the West'

come october 26, asoka, bollywood's answer to the chinese blockbuster crouching tiger, hidden dragon, will release in at least 64 theatres in london alone and also in countries like brazil, peru and romania, which aren't traditional markets for masala films. and the actor-producer of the film, shah rukh insists that his period opus is a regular hindi film.the film has songs, drama and romance like any other film being made here. just because the film is based on a historical character and is made by an internationally acclaimed director like santosh sivan doesn't mean that asoka is not a commercial film, clarifies shah rukh. asoka is the first hindi commerical film which has done the round of most major movie festivals, including the ones in toronto and venice before its release in india. santosh (sivan) has won 11 major international awards and when we started the film we had decided that this film will also do the rounds of the festival circuit. also, we are selling the film ourselves in overseas. so, it made sense that we showed the film to distributors abroad. 'why should the industry which makes the maximum number of films a year be apologetic about the kind of films it makes' was the question that was topmost on shah rukh's mind when asoka was being screened for foreign buyers. initially when we screened asoka, we cut the songs but people who saw the film said that we should keep them. that is when we realised that italian or japanese films have a particular style of film making, and ours have songs and dances and lots of colour. why should we make shorter films or not have songs. it is the subject of asoka which makes the film quite universal, but shah rukh is confident that our formula films will also be able to find new and larger markets abroad if their quality increases. it would be great if all our films are marketed the hollywood way. the only thing the filmmakers have to be cautious about is that the films shouldn't make us look like fools. just the way, our markets demand songs and romance, overseas markets want superior quality. so, does he expect at least an oscar nomination? i really don't know, he muses, but it would be the best.