With major success at the box office in 2018, Aziz Jindani’s animated feature, The Donkey King has now become the highest-grossing animated film in the history of Pakistani cinema.
Reporting a collection of PKR 24.5 Crore, the film has managed to make more than any other animated film has in Pakistan by a longshot. It has also become the sixth highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time.
In another first, it also is one of the few Pakistani films to break through the dominance of Bollywood at the box office and go on to the 12th week of its running with an approximate 40% occupancy at the cinemas.
The Donkey King explores the Kingdom of Azadnagar, where the animal hierarchy is all set; the lions rule the land, the herbivores populate it, and of course, the donkeys exist on the lowest strata of it all. Mangu, the launderer donkey (Jan Rambo) is lower than the lowest on this hierarchy. However, things change when Badshah Khan (Ghulam Mohiuddin) decides to abdicate the throne in favour of his son, Shahzada Khan (Adeel Hashmi) via a ‘democratic election’ courtesy the literally foxy vizier, Miss Fitna’s (Hina Dilpazeer) advice.
Planning to create chaos and galvanize her masterplan of poaching animals for the circus ringmaster, Miss Fitna’s scheme begins to materialize when she uses the idea of democracy to instill hatred against the reigning king, and in turn, gets the population to vote for her own candidate – the ever-simple, Mangu.
