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Reviewed by Lee Broughton
Media 'satirists' have come to realize that the conventions of
the average Bollywood flick - dazzling Technicolor, intensely played out soap
opera-ish themes and elaborate song and dance routines - are now as instantly
recognizable as those of the badly dubbed Kung Fu action flicks that they liked
to lampoon a few years back. Bollywood should care: the domestic market,
and niche markets around the world, seem to keep the Indian film industry
ticking over nicely. But it seems that some Indian filmmakers do care and
a concerted effort is being made by some of them to produce films with the
appeal, and the production values, needed to seriously compete with films
produced in the West. Asoka, directed by Santosh Sivan,
is the latest such effort.
Synopsis:
In the 3rd century B.C. kingdom of Magadha, Prince Asoka’s (Shah
Rukh Khan) royal step-siblings fear that he may soon succeed in becoming
Emperor. They plot his demise but he continually survives both the
purposefully mismatched military engagements that he is ordered to lead and
their more direct assassination attempts. When the infighting causes a
crisis at the royal court, Asoka’s mother begs him to leave, and to roam their
land incognito, until the day that he should be summoned to return. On his
travels he meets and marries Princess Kaurwaki (Kareena Kapoor) of the
neighbouring kingdom of Kalinga. Political insurrection at home has
resulted in Kaurwaki and her younger brother Arya (Suraj Balaji) going into
hiding under the protection of their royal bodyguard, Bheema (Rahul Dev).
Asoka is eventually summoned home and he soon hears that Kaurwaki and Arya have
been captured and killed in his absence. Asoka channels his
fury into waging devastating wars on Magadha's neighbouring kingdoms.
But when he sets his sights on Kalinga, an unexpected encounter takes
place amidst the aftermath of one of the bloodiest battles in Indian
history. An encounter which manages to penetrate the obstinate shield
of aggression that Asoka has wrapped himself in and restore the inner peace
needed to bring an end to the cycle of wanton bloodshed that he had petulantly
instigated.
Obviously there’s a generic feel to most productions of a
legendary-come-historical and epic nature and the story of Asoka’s life, as
presented in this film, contains many familiar conventions. At the start
of the film, the young Asoka rescues a legendary sword from a river bed.
But, unlike King Arthur’s Excalibur, this sword is not a particularly positive
agent: described as being a ‘demon’, once drawn the sword thirsts for blood, be
it that of friend or foe, good or bad. The tensions at the royal court of
Magadha, the step-sibling rivalry for the soon to be vacant throne, and the
political insurrection in Kalinga are much like many scenarios previously
encountered in other historical dramas. When Asoka first breaks
free from the constraints of royal protocol, and travels the locality
incognito, he's a little like an easy going Spaghetti Western hero (some of whom
were, in some part themselves, based on the heroes of Greek and Roman mythology)
in the mould of Terence Hill’s ‘Trinity’ or ‘Nobody’ characters: he talks to his
horse, makes small children laugh, is polite to the ladies and is playfully
bashful yet cheeky when he is caught watching Kaurwaki bathing. But he
remains confident and assured enough to reluctantly enter into a series of good
natured tests of strength and fighting ability with a local hard man, Virat
(Danny Denzongpa), and is fully prepared to fight for real when real danger
threatens.
A nice touch is the intermittent appearance of three lowly court guards,
whose comical conversations and observations act as reminders and indicators of
certain plot twists. Their use brings to mind similar characters that have
appeared in some Japanese historical epics. This tenuous link to
Japanese cinema is strengthened by the subplot involving Kaurwaki, Arya and
Bheema, which could be compared to some of the basic elements of Akira
Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. The theme of lost love
provoking a hero’s descent into violent expression on the battlefield, while
showing complete disregard for his own safety, is a fairly universal and often
used idea. But such familiarities do not prove to be a problem: all of the
above elements are convincingly woven together into a well paced and engrossing
tale.
The cinematography is equally good and is consistently stylish. As well
as presenting some nice framing, Director/Cinematographer Santosh Sivan has
developed a personal approach that comes on like a wild cross between
Ridley Scott’s presentation of Russell Crowe’s injury induced delirium dreams at
the beginning of Gladiator and those shaky,
disorientating, over-exposed-frames-between-edits tricks so beloved of David
Lynch and several contemporary European filmmakers. The process
present here also involves the rapid and repeated use of lightning-fast pans
and elaborate camera swoops that suddenly come to an abrupt stop,
wobbly jump cuts, shimmering camera shifts that flit between shots of the
same subject from multiple angles, film speed tricks and the like. Sivan
just never lets up with this approach and, while it could be argued that there
is nothing particularly new here, it’s all implemented with
such controlled and evenly paced gusto, and such amazingly precise
editing, that it works a treat and Sivan comes to make this curious amalgam of
visual effects his own. The art direction is also of a wonderfully high
quality. The locations, sets and costumes all look authentic and a simple
but elegant approach is adhered to for the interiors of the royal palaces.
This Pal Region 0 DVD presents the full version of the film, which includes
five song and dance interludes. While a couple of the routines are shot in
an almost old-time Hollywood musical style, for the most part a fairly
flashy MTV-come-music video approach is utilized to good
effect. The songs aren’t bad, making use of modern sounding rhythms played
on mainly traditional Indian instruments. The soundtrack music proper
is also pretty good. A nice mix of the suitably grand, dramatic and
sweeping arrangements, and the quieter, more introspective musical lulls,
demanded from any presentation of such an epic nature. The acting is good,
too. Danny Denzongpa deserves a special mention for his fine portrayal of
the roguish Virat, a great character who becomes a good friend to Asoka, while
the romantic scenes played out between Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor work
extremely well without their lips ever having to meet, let alone the need
to resort to anything approaching nudity.
The final battle for Kalinga is pretty well staged. Emotionally, it
touches upon the heroics associated with the likes of The Seven
Samurai, and the Liang Shan Po hero-rebels from The Water
Margin, as young, old, male and female gather together in a final
determined effort to protect their homeland from invaders. Six thousand
extras reportedly took part in the filming of the battle
sequence. While a seemingly Gladiator -inspired
overemphasis on shots depicting close quarters combat (which includes
some historically authentic but ultimately Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon-like martial arts) sometimes serves to obscure
the full scale of the endeavour slightly, some of the broader shots do
successfully capture the true magnitude of the reconstruction. Sivan pulls
no punches in showing the terrible aftermath of the battle and there appear to
be a couple of nods in the direction of Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad
and the Ugly in this respect.
The film’s producers are keen to point out that "this is a story based on
legends," adding, "some characters, events and places have been fictionalized for
greater dramatic appeal - this film does not claim to be a complete historical
account of Asoka’s life but an attempt to follow his journey." This
approach has apparently caused a little disquiet amongst some historically
minded viewers who have expressed disappointment that the film’s story arc
actually ends at the start of the most endearing and important chapter of
Asoka’s life. After his eventual denouncement of war, Asoka dedicated his
life to spreading the teachings of Buddhism throughout the world. This
film ends just as that phase of Asoka’s story begins. Sivan is said
to have wanted to produce a film that fell somewhere between art house interests
and outright commercial appeal. I think he succeeded.
The picture and sound quality of this DVD are excellent. The dialogue is presented
in the film's original Hindi (Dolby Digital 5.1)
and Tamil (Dolby Digital 2.0), with English and French subtitles being available
for selection. The disc contains a good selection of extras, too. The two
mini-documentaries (both run to around 20 minutes each) are reasonably
interesting but appear to be lacking subtitles, which would have been handy in a
couple of places.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Asoka rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Trailer, individual song selection, The Making of
Asoka docu, The Big Fight docu, image gallery with radio advert soundbed, main
cast biographies, director filmography.
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: March 10, 2002
Text © Copyright 2007 Lee Broughton
DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson
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