Movie World
Movie ‘Chak De! India’ was rejected by Salman Khan, accepted by Shah Rukh
Khan
‘Chak De! India’ became the third-highest-grossing film of 2007 in India
By Dinesh Kamath
Salman Khan had rejected the movie
Chak De India which later went to Shah Rukh Khan. Here are few information
about the film:
Chak De! India (English: Go For it!
India or Go! India) is a 2007 Indian Hindi language sports film, directed by
Shimit Amin and produced by Aditya Chopra, with a screenplay written by Jaideep
Sahni, sports scenes choreographed by Rob Miller, and music by Salim–Sulaiman.
It tells a fictional story about the Indian women's national field-hockey team,
which was inspired by the team's win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and
explores themes such as feminism and sexism, the legacy of the partition of
India, racial and religious bigotry, and ethnic and regional prejudice. The
film stars Shahrukh Khan as Kabir Khan, former captain of the Indian men's
national field-hockey team. After a disastrous loss to Pakistan, Khan is
ostracized from the sport and he and his mother are driven from the family home
by angry neighbors. Seven years later, to redeem himself, Khan becomes the
coach of the Indian national women's hockey team and aims to turn its sixteen
contentious players into a championship unit.
Chak De! India won a number of
awards, including the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing
Wholesome Entertainment. On 30 August 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences requested a copy of the film's script for a place in its Margaret
Herrick Library. When the Indian Hockey Federation was reorganised in April
2008, former player Aslam Sher Khan said that he wanted "to create a 'Chak
De' effect" in Indian hockey. The film was screened in New Delhi on 17
August 2016, as part of the week long Independence Day Film Festival. The
festival was jointly presented by the Indian Directorate of Film Festivals and
Ministry of Defense, commemorating India's 70th Independence Day.
Chak De! India premiered on 9
August 2007 at Somerset House in London to an audience of over 2,000 during the
Film4 Summer Screen and India Now festivals. It was released globally in
theaters on 10 August 2007, playing on only 400 screens in India because of the
commercial failure of Yash Raj Films's two previous films.
Due to the film's strong critical
response, theaters reported 80-percent occupancy for its opening weekend. Chak
De! India topped the Indian box office during its first two weeks, and played
to full houses during its first two months. The film was particularly
successful in large cities. Chak De! India was the third-highest-grossing film
of 2007 in India, with domestic net earnings of ₹50,54,00,000 that year. By the
end of its theatrical run, the film grossed ₹108.18 crore ($27.05 million)
worldwide, including ₹85.86 crore gross (₹66.54 crore net) in India and $3.94
million (₹15.76 crore) overseas.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
gave Chak De! India a rating of 92% based on 13 reviews (12 "fresh"
and one "rotten"), with an average score of 7.2 out of 10. On
Metacritic, the film had a score of 68 from four critics, indicating generally
favorable reviews.
In an NPR interview via affiliate
WBUR-FM, Mumbai Mirror columnist Aseem Chhabra called Chak De! India "an
example of a film that's been made within the framework of Bollywood and yet it
is a very different film. It does take up some realistic issues, and what I
really liked about the film was that the women who acted, you know, who are
part of the team, each one of them got a chance. Their personality, their
characters, were very well-written, and so, the superstar in the film was
Shahrukh Khan, who was the coach of the team; he doesn't sort of take over the
whole film. Every supporting character gets a role, and it's a very inspiring
movie that really changed the mood in India. People loved it". Nikhat
Kazmi of The Times of India gave the film four out of five stars stating that
it was a film of "great performances by a bunch of unknowns." India
Today called Chak De! India "the most feisty girl power movie to have come
out of Bollywood ever." Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu wrote, "At
another level, Chak De is about women's liberation. It is one of the best
feminist films of our times." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the film four
out of five stars, saying "Chak De's ... a winner all the way."
Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express called the film "the most authentic,
meticulously researched sports movie India has made". In Kolkata's
Telegraph, Bharathi S. Pradhan wrote that the film combines "an extremely
well-knit screenplay with unrelentingly deft direction, 16 unknown, and not
even glamorous, girls simply carried you with them, with one single known actor
compelling you to watch Chak De India without blinking". Jaspreet Pandohar
of the BBC gave Chak De! India four out of five stars stating that "while
the tale of the sporting underdog is hardly new, Jaideep Sahni's screenplay
offers a rare look at a popular Indian sport often overshadowed by
cricket." Andy Webster of The New York Times wrote that the film gave a
fresh look to the conventional underdog sports film, comparing its premise to
the U.S. victory in the 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup. Derek Elley of Variety
called Chak De! India "a patriotic heartwarmer that scores some
old-fashioned entertainment goals."
In The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt wrote that the "technical
credits are first rate with excellent cinematography, quicksilver editing,
musical montages of practice and a fine use of locations."
Michael Dequina of
themoviereport.com was more critical of the film, giving it 2.5 out of four
stars and calling it "a very familiar, very formula underdog sports movie
with nothing to distinguish it from similar, equally slick Hollywood
product." Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide gave Chak De! India two stars out
of four, writing that the film uses "sports-movie conventions to address
larger cultural and political issues, and while it doesn't miss a cliche, it
also invests every one with vigorous conviction." Although Subhash K. Jha
gave the film 3.5 stars, calling it "a fairly predictable story" with
dialogue "quite often the stuff bumper stickers are made of", he
wrote that "Chak De India is an outright winner" and "one of the
finest sports-based dramas in living memory." Khalid Mohamed gave the film
3.5 stars in the Hindustan Times stating that the film "may be predictable
but compels you to root for a team of losers whom only an earth-angel can save
from disastrous defeat".
Apart from critics, Chak De! India
tied with Taare Zameen Par for the Best film of 2007 according to various
Bollywood movie directors such as Madhur Bhandarkar, David Dhawan, Rakeysh
Omprakash Mehra, Anurag Basu, and Sriram Raghavan.
Chak De! India has become an
influential film. The title track song "Chak De! India," now doubles
as a sports anthem in India and is played at numerous sports events. According
to Salim Merchant, the song "almost became the sports anthem of the
country, especially after India won the Cricket World Cup [2011]. It was no
longer our song but the country's song". After India's World Cup victory,
Indian team player Virat Kohli "sang 'Chak de India' to the crowd".
When India defeated South Africa at the 2015 Cricket World Cup, Nitin
Srivastava of the BBC noted: "MCG has erupted with "Vande
Mataram" (the national song of India) and "Chak De India" (Go
India!) slogans in the air! And there's no age barrier for cricket fans who
came and enjoyed the match".
In addition, the suspension of the
Indian Hockey Federation in April 2008 also indicated the film's influence.
India Today used the title to label the event in two articles, titled
"Operation Chak De impact: Jothikumaran resigns" and "Operation
Chak de impact: Furore in Lok Sabha". The Indiatimes, in an article
titled, "Five wise men set for a Chak De act" also argued, "It
looks like Indian hockey has done a real Chak de this time around". In
addition, former hockey player Aslam Sher Khan, who was appointed by the Indian
Olympic Association to head a committee which will replace the IHF, pointed to
the film as a model to work towards. He stated in an interview, "We have
to make a Team India as you have seen in Bollywood blockbuster Chak De! India.
There are players from several parts of the country. We have to unite them to make
a powerful force." In another interview, he emphasised that he wants
"to create a Chak De effect" on hockey in India.
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