Samrat Prithviraj (2022) Hindi Movie Review And
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Samrat Prithviraj review: Akshay Kumar’s period piece is loud, lurid and colourful
Samrat Prithviraj review: As befits its simplistic, shorn-of-nuance tone, this Akshay Kumar-Manushi Chhillar film lurches between dialogue-baazi and blandness, and stays completely faithful to its stated intent.
The handsome king who galloped away with his bride, her knight in shining armour, has an ancient Indian context: Prithviraj Chauhan, the early 12th-century ruler of Ajmer, claimed Rajkumari Sanyogita as his own, after she lost her heart to him. Details of this love story are recorded in ‘Prithivaj Raso’, penned by Chand Bardai, said to be Prithviraj’s court poet. Not only was the fair princess rescued from the wrath of her father, the traitor Jaichand; the might of the Mughals was kept at bay till his last breath, so valorous was Prithviraj.
This is a beloved legend most Indians will remember vividly from their childhood. But there never has been a better time to make a movie out of it: muscular nationalism is at its peak, and at every turn, we are being reminded of the cruelties of the Mughal invaders, who ‘trampled upon our temples and turned them into mosques’. ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, in which Akshay Kumar plays the titular character, loses no time to tell us that he was the ‘last Hindu king’: after him came centuries of oppression which came to an end only after India attained independence in 1947.
What Chandraprakash Dwivedi has done is to soup up the legend so that it is in synch with the dominant national mood: Prithviraj is representative of a Bharat when it was pristine, pure, unpolluted. How did a director who has also made the astonishingly subversive ‘Mohalla Assi’ achieve this switcheroo? (Dwivedi has been on record to say that this is his passion project, and he has been trying to get it off the ground for a decade and more). Or is it just a question of being expedient?
Akshay Kumar and Manushi Chhillar play lead roles in Samrat Prithviraj. (Photo: Manushi Chhillar/Instagram)
Samrat Prithviraj movie cast: Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Manav Vij, Sonu Sood, Manushi Chhillar, Sakshi Tanwar, Ashutosh Rana, Manoj Lalit Tiwari
Samrat Prithviraj movie director: Chandraprakash Dwivedi
Samrat Prithviraj movie rating: 2 stars
The handsome king who galloped away with his bride, her knight in shining armour, has an ancient Indian context: Prithviraj Chauhan, the early 12th-century ruler of Ajmer, claimed Rajkumari Sanyogita as his own, after she lost her heart to him. Details of this love story are recorded in ‘Prithivaj Raso’, penned by Chand Bardai, said to be Prithviraj’s court poet. Not only was the fair princess rescued from the wrath of her father, the traitor Jaichand; the might of the Mughals was kept at bay till his last breath, so valorous was Prithviraj.
This is a beloved legend most Indians will remember vividly from their childhood. But there never has been a better time to make a movie out of it: muscular nationalism is at its peak, and at every turn, we are being reminded of the cruelties of the Mughal invaders, who ‘trampled upon our temples and turned them into mosques’. ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, in which Akshay Kumar plays the titular character, loses no time to tell us that he was the ‘last Hindu king’: after him came centuries of oppression which came to an end only after India attained independence in 1947.
Akshay Kumar, samrat Prithviraj Akshay Kumar in Samrat Prithviraj.
What Chandraprakash Dwivedi has done is to soup up the legend so that it is in synch with the dominant national mood: Prithviraj is representative of a Bharat when it was pristine, pure, unpolluted. How did a director who has also made the astonishingly subversive ‘Mohalla Assi’ achieve this switcheroo? (Dwivedi has been on record to say that this is his passion project, and he has been trying to get it off the ground for a decade and more). Or is it just a question of being expedient?
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Also read |Manushi Chhillar on age-gap with Samrat Prithviraj co-star Akshay Kumar: ‘It doesn’t matter’
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