A new-born turns into a teenager in 18 years, a teenager turns into an adult in 18 years, and an adult turns into an old one. And, it took 18 years for Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi to make a film titled ‘Samrat Prithviraj’. Well, hold your horses. While you may think that the 18 years of effort would have resulted into a masterpiece, the reality is that the film “Samrat Prithviraj” is not an iota of what is called ‘authenticity’. Why, let’s find out.
The Plot
The film begins in 1192 in Afghanistan’s Ghazni where Prithviraj Chauhan (Akshay Kumar) has already been taken prisoner by the merciless Muhammad Ghori (Manav Vij), ruler of the Ghurid empire. The Rajput ruler is challenged for a duel with three lions. Prithviraj Chauhan has been blinded during his imprisonment in Ghazni but triumphs over blindness and heroically battles the three lions.
Read more: Dear Akshay Kumar, Prithviraj Chauhan wasn’t the last Hindu Samrat
The film “Samrat Prithviraj” shows Mohammad Ghori’s treacherous tactics to invade the kingdom, battling king Jaychand (Ashutosh Rana), the ruler of Kannauj for his daughter Sanyogita (Manushi Chhillar), confronting his own death.
The below-average performances
Akshay Kumar-starrer Samrat Prithviraj is based on the heroics of the fearless King Prithviraj Chauhan. The film “Samrat Prithviraj” hit the theatres on June 3. The superstar has played the role of the legendary warrior who fought against Muhammad of Ghor and defeated him multiple times.
It is based on Chand Bardai’s PrithvirajRaso, an epic poem traced back to the 13th century, which has been quite popular since the 19th century. While the film is about war and valour, both of which do not actually require unnecessary sloganeering. Yet what you witness the most is ‘dialogue-baazi’.
Written and directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi, the movie also stars Manushi Chillar, SonuSood and Sanjay Dutt. Sonu Sood plays the putative bard. A blindfolded Sanjay Dutt as the warrior kaka, whose ‘akhandpratigya’ is to behead anyone who dares to harm the king, doesn’t justify the character. While Sonu predicts the future like anoracle, Sanjay resorts to his Munna Bhai body language. Manushi Chillar’s character Sanyogita appears as the dreariest princess we’ve ever seen in a historical drama.
Read more: 5 Actors who would have looked better as Prithviraj Chauhan than Akshay Kumar
Coming next to Akshay Kumar, the actor has failed terribly to portray the grand king that Samrat Prithiviraj Chauhan was! TFI has already told that other actors like Shahid Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal and Randeep Hooda or anyone with the capabilities to justify the character would have looked better in the role.
This is what disappoints you the most as the movie fails to project Samrat Prithviraj the way it should have been.
How ‘authentic’ Samrat Prithviraj is
With 18 years of research, patriotism, spectacular sets, and VFX, a grand and exceptional film could have been served to the audience in the name of Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan. But a chemical called secularism and unauthenticity spoiled all the hard work.
A day before the release of the film, Akshay Kumar requested his fans to watch this ‘historical film’ but not give spoilers. Now, we know which spoilers he was talking about.
Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi, before the release of the film, had claimed that he wanted to show the real Indian history and wanted to project the true valour of Emperor Prithviraj. Well, sorry but you have been proven unsuccessful to do so.
The film “Samrat Prithviraj” has disappointed us a lot to portray Indian history in a realistic manner. Chandraprakash Dwivedi, the director of ‘Samrat Prithivraj’ is exactly the opposite of the director of the famous TV series ‘Chanakya’ on Acharya Chanakya.
Creativity doesn’t mean compromising the real incidents and ‘Urduising Rajputs’. I might sound naïve but I am really clueless if Rajput kings used to wish each other ‘Holi Mubarak’ in the 12th century. There are multiple such scenes and facts that clearly depict how secularism has been added to the film.
If the maker actually wanted to make an authentic historical film, he should have watched ‘Tanhaji’ first. How beautifully the history was told without compromising with facts.
However, the movie is a one-time watch only to understand how bad period films are! It’s 2.5 out of 5 stars for TFI.