The Legend of Maula Jatt, the Pakistani blockbuster starring Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan and Hamza Ali Abbasi, has won two awards at the 7th Jackie Chan International Action Film Week in China.
Director Bilal Lashari announced the wins on Instagram, sharing details of the closing ceremony where the film received the Special Jury Award and the Best Art Direction award.
He said seeing his film recognised alongside titles like Mortal Kombat 2 and The Furious felt “wild”, and described the moment he accepted the awards on an open-air stage during downpour throughout the ceremony.
Lashari wrote that he was soaked by the time he reached the mic”, with a stranger holding an umbrella over him as the trophy dripped and the arena lit up behind the rain.
He said that the Art Direction award held special meaning because it belonged to production designers Namsa Abbasi and Hamza Bajwa rather than to him, and added that their work built “an entire world” for the film.
He also acknowledged producer Ammara Hikmat, who was not present in Harbin where the ceremony was held.
The award show is named after Chan, whose films Lashari said he grew up watching. He called it surreal to stand on a stage bearing Chan’s name while representing Pakistan, and said meeting Chan in person and receiving his congratulations was something he never imagined when the project began.
Lashari thanked producer Nadeem Mandviwalla and his wife, calling them his partners through the film’s journey in China, and closed his message by dedicating the win to Pakistan.
The Jackie Chan International Action Film Week began as part of the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2015. Its fifth edition was held in 2019, and the sixth, held in 2021, celebrated the ten most influential classic Chinese action films.
The recognition in China comes months after The Legend of Maula Jatt finally released there in May, following years of delay.
Lashari wrote after the Beijing premiere that the response from local audiences, who had no prior context about the film’s cast or Pakistan’s film industry, felt pure in a way that reminded him why cinema still matters in a world of streaming and social media.
The Legend of Maula Jatt, a reboot of the 1979 cult classic, also stars Humaima Malick, Gohar Rasheed, Faris Shafi and Ali Azmat.
