British director Danny Boyle is seen at the premiere of "Slumdog Millionaire" in Beijing China, March 25.

"I hope this is a universal story that connects nations," says Danny Boyle, director of "Slumdog Millionaire" when he was in Beijing on Tuesday to promote the film.

Having swept the 81st Academy Awards with eight wins including that of the Best Picture and Best Director, the film hits Chinese mainland theaters Thursday.

"It's a big film about people who are regarded as small people from very humble background, but they have big hearts and a big story to tell," said Boyle.

"Slumdog Millionaire" tells the story of 18-year-old orphan Jamal's pursuit of his childhood lover while rising from a street rat in Mumbai to become the biggest winner on a popular TV quiz show.

Boyle is optimistic about the film's reception in China, a country often compared with India in terms of its locations, population and speedy economic development.

"China and India both have huge populations," he said. "In both countries there is a huge mass of ordinary people, who will find that the character's life story could be theirs, too. Everybody's life story is worth something - that's one of the reasons this film works all over the world."

Boyle was delighted about the film's success in South Africa, where it debuted in the same week as "The Watchman." It was only shown in half as many screens as the blockbuster but took twice as much money.

As one of 20 foreign films annually screened on the Chinese mainland, the rags-to-riches tale will hit some 2,000 theaters across the country.

"The film shows a concern for the grass roots, is inspirational and has a special artistic beauty," said Weng Li, a spokesman for China Film Group, which handles the importing of foreign films to Daily Variety. Weng also revealed CFG is considering importing more Oscar films to China this year.

Weng also said he was confident that Chinese movie-goers' enthusiasm will, in spite of pirate DVDs and online downloading, significantly add to the movie's already impressive global box office earnings of 200 million U.S. dollars.

"Slumdog Millionaire" premiered in Hong Kong on Feb 26 and raked in HK$1 million ($128,899), dwarfing previous first-day takings there by Oscar winners like "Million Dollar Baby" (HK$138,863) in 2005 and "Crash" (HK$114,922) in 2006.

It has generated widespread controversy in India, however. Some people criticized Boyle for depicting their country as poor, dirty and backward, while others cheered its revelation of the country's true nature.

Boyle laughed off the issue: "It is democracy," he said. "India has a billion people. They disagree with everything all the time, and they are so full-on, never half-hearted. It is full of debate there and it's good debate."

The controversy, Boyle believes, stems to a large extent from India's own film industry.

"Bollywood tends to depict only near-childish fantastic pictures of the middle class - that tends to be Bollywood's big obsession," he said. "Some Bollywood people think films should not focus on slums, while others say that's exactly how Bollywood pictures would improve, by actually catering to more ordinary people."