Rangoon loses a bit of its narrative simplicity once Nawab and Julia return to the British camp, and the film gravitates towards Rusi. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if Rusi wasn't, for most of the film's second half, such a generic jealous lover. He flies into a tizzy when he notices Nawab and Julia's furtive glances and not-so-secret rendezvous, though it takes some time before he decides to act on his feelings. The film uses Rusi, Julia and Nawab's love triangle to examine a divided country's conflicted feelings about being subjugated by foreign powers. Julia resents Rusi's insistence that she is his creation, while Rusi grows to dislike being told what to do by cartoonishly evil British General Harding ( Richard McCabe) . Nawab, a British POW forced to fight against his fellow countrymen, has his own baggage, but it's hard to get into that without giving away a key plot point.
The most remarkable thing about Rangoon isn't how seamless its plot mechanics are or how ideologically nuanced it is; it's the movie's determination to foreground its characters and get you to care what happens to them. This is a convincing love story featuring catchy songs and well-choreographed dance numbers, and it features a heroine who isn't just a cliched harpy one minute and ass-kicker the next. Rangoon may climax with showy war-movie pyrotechnics and a showdown that leaves more main characters dead than alive, but even that succeeds because Bhardwaj and his co-creators make sure you're invested in the film's ever-escalating stakes.
