Movie Review of Mangal Pandey - The Rising. Review on Mangal Pandey - The Rising

Psst - This section will contain some inside trivia about the film.

Quotes - Good one liners from the movie.

Oops - Goofs From the movie.

Director – Ketan Mehta

Screenplay – Farrukh Dhondy

Before you read the review I would like to brief everyone about the start of Colonization in The Indian Sub Continent which ranged from The Now North West of Pakistan to Burma and from Kashmir to Sri Lanka. The British East India Company was formed under the Grant of Queen Elizabeth – 1 in 1600 to stop the Dutch monopoly of trading with India for Spices. The Company started its trade with their first Factory in Surat and then slowly starting Trading with the rest of Indian Sub Continent. They started by trading in Spices and Indigo but later discovered something which would shake the course of man kind forever, Poppy Seeds which are the source of Opium and all other narcotic products. The Company slowly started making regional kingdoms fight amongst themselves and practically were started colonizing the whole of Indian Sub Continent. For the first time in History of Mankind was an instance when a bunch of traders had actually colonized a huge sub continent and even had their own army. Although they did set up the base for good infrastructure and communications and even abolished Draconian Rituals like Sati, The company had come only for their own selfish motives.. Mangal Pandey – The Rising is based on true life incident of the mutiny of 1857 by the Sepoys of the 34th Infantry of Barakpore against the company and spear headed by India’s first freedom fighter, Mangal Pandey.

Mangal Pandey (Aamir Khan), a soldier in the British East India Company, saves the life of his superior Captain William Gordon (Toby Stephens) during the 2nd Anglo - Afghan War of 1854. Very soon the Company introduces New Enfield .557 rifle. To use the rifle one has to chew the cartridge, remove the gun powder, fill it in the barrel, put the stone bullets, mix them and then fire it. The Guns were extremely controversial as the rumor had it the cartridges were greased with fat of Cow (Who were holy to the Hindus who were primarily Staunch Vegetarians) and Pig(Which were unholy to the muslims). When Captain Gordon convinces the soldiers that the rumor was false, Mangal Pandey also chews the cartridges to prove to his colleagues that Gordon was right. When Mangal Pandey comes to know that the rumor was actually true he starts to revolt against the company as all the Indian soldiers were extremely conservative. This was India’s first War of Independence. While the soldiers are revolting and start marching towards Delhi so that they can capture The Red Fort and Proclaim the ailing Last Mughal King Bhadur Shah Zafar – 2 as their ruler, they are divided and a group of 40,000 British Soldiers are called from Rangoon, Burma to take control over them. Superb Narration and India’s answer to Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. Aamir Khan is at his usual best and Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel are good in the small roles. The Direction, Cinematography(Himman Dhamija]), Art Direction (Nitin Desai) are near flawless. But the surprise package is the superb performance by Toby Stephens. This is a must watch for movie Buffs and no Aamir Khan Fan is going to miss this movie. Watch out for 3 scenes. The Scene where Mangal Pandey Saves Heera (Rani Mukherjee) from getting molested. The Scene at the hospital when Mangal Pandey is on the bed and the scene where Mangal Pandey single handedly revolts against the British Army.

Psst –

1) Although the movie is termed as The Rising, that term is used only for the period after the death of Mangal Pandey and till the year of 1858 when the company rule stopped and Queen Victoria Took Control of the Indian Sub Continet.

2) After the revolution of 1857 and after the company was totally abolished by Queen Victoria in 1858, the British Introduced a lot of reforms which included the stop of Land Grabbing, abolishing all draconian laws like Sati completely. They also allowed only British Soldiers to use Artillery. Queen Victoria declared her self the empress of India in 1877.

3) This is Aamir Khan’s first movie release in 4 years and Ketan Mehta’s first directorial film in nearly 8 and a half years.

4) The movie was supposed to have a 2003 release as the shooting was to start just after 2002 oscars. But Methodist Aamir Khan, in order to get under the character, wanted to grow his hair long and a typical north Indian Moustache which would take nearly 6-7 months. In between he also suffered a personal Trauma when his uncle, famous director Nasir Hussain passed away and he also separated from his wife of 17 years, Reena.

5) Although filming took only 6 months, post production took much more than that. The film was to be released in Mid 2003 then December 2003 then January 2004 then December 2004 and finally got released on Independence day weekend on 12th August.

6) Hugh Jackman was offered the role of William Gordon but he turned down the role. Aishwarya Rai was offered a role which she declined at the last moment and it went to Amisha Patel. Kiera Knightley' was considered for the role of Emily Kent.

7) The movie was shot on a budget of nearly Rs 350 million. Aamir Khan’s fee was Rs 70 Million.

8) The biggest coup occurred when Prince Charles Spencer of England clapped the inaugural shot. Very surprising for a movie which was based on India’s fight for freedom against the British.

9) The Afghan wars were fought as Afghanistan was and still is the world’s largest supplier or Opium. The Britishers lost both the Anglo-Afghan war and till the erstwhile USSR in 1979, no single country has ever won any War against the Afghans.

10) The movie was not spared of controversies when certain people, who claimed to be direct descendants of Mangal Pandey, wanted to ban the movie as they said it didn’t depict the real Mangal Pandey.

11) Probably a rare Aamir Khan movie where he is not shown kissing his female co star.

12) Contrary to certain reports, the 1982 film Mangal Pandey is NOT based on the legendary revolutionarie’s life. It starred Shatrughan Sinha and Parveen Babi in the lead roles and the name of the lead character was Mangal Pandey.

13) Ketan Mehta had planned to make the movie way back in 1996 with Sanjay Dutt and Manisha Koirala in the lead role and the tittle was registered as 1857. The project got subsequently shelved.

14) Most of the British Characters are foreign tourists who were taken from places like Pune and Goa.

Quotes -

1) “Yeh company kya cheez hai ?”

2) “We trade Opium which is an addiction for them for Tea and Silk which is an addiction for us.”

3) “Allahbad.”

4) “Waqt hi to nahi hai.”

5) “Charbi Chabana to khaali ek bemaan hai.”

Oops –

1) It is very very very unlikely that Indian Soldiers would use Gregorian Calendar dates in their communication, specially in 1857.

2) In one scene set in the month of March 1857, it is shown as raining in the night. It is not possible to have rains in the month of March in the Northern part of India where the film is based.

PS – I would like to thank My Father, IMDB.com, Wikipedia.org and my History Classes for providing most of the trivia for the movie.