Chasing An Epic

NO Indian film has ever been as expensive. The logistics involved in the making of China-Gate, Rajkumar Santoshi's flamboyant tribute to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, were awesome: a budget of Rs 20 crore, a 800-strong production unit, 125 stuntmen, 70 horses, 110 days of shooting with multiple cameras. Sadly, not all of it quite shows on the screen. China-Gate delivers far less than it promises. One viewer emerging from the film's opening show in a central Delhi movie hall perhaps put it just right: "Superhit wali baat nahin hai (it doesn't have the feel of a superhit)."

 It may be too early to write off China Gate—in 1975, critics and trade pundits had rubbished Ramesh Sippy's definitive curry western, Sholay, during the first couple of weeks of its run only to be proved abysmally wrong. But chances of Santoshi's ambitious but far less successful reworking of the Seven Samurai legend doing a Sholay on cocky critics appears rather remote.

First, what China-Gate promises: an epic outdoor adventure set in a rugged hamlet, a gallery of characters whose old world heroism links the film to a glorious genre, and a cast of first-rate actors with the ability to light up the screen. What the film delivers is way, way short of its target: there's little that is epic about the action; only a handful of the characters manage to acquire a rounded look; and the actors, gifted as they are, cannot do much to save a script that tries far too much. Too many characters, too much violence, too much ambition.

But the storyline is simple enough. A forest officer (Girish Karnad) is killed by a dacoit (Mukesh Tiwari). The former's daughter (Mamta Kulkarni) turns to a ex-army officer (Om Puri) for help. Court-martialled and dismissed from the army 17 years ago, the colonel sees the appeal as an opportunity to redeem his pride. He brings his men together again—some of them join the mission reluctantly—and the army of 10 sets out to take on the unseen enemy.

Shot near the Hampi ruins in Karnataka—the main location is a full-fledged township constructed at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore—the film eschews 'stars' and unleashes a battery of 'actors'. Barring a song and dance routine featuring a bosom-heaving Urmila Matondkar, China-Gate skirts clear of conventional ingredients, too. The strategy works. Almost.

Where the film comes a trifle unstuck is in the manner it lets the backdrop remain just that. China-Gate doesn't quite open on to a world pulsating with life and raw emotion. Devdurg is no Ramgarh. In Sholay which, too, was inspired by Seven Samurai, the villagers were key, tangible figures in the film's sharply etched emotional landscape. In China-Gate, the inhabitants of Devdurg remain largely in the background, emerging only occasionally as hazy collective chimera to give the action a semblance of a context. It doesn't always work.

And Jageera, the film's villain, is no Gabbar Singh, who was a baddie audiences had never encountered before on the Indian screen. Jageera, played competently by newcomer Tiwari, is too derivative, too over-the-top, too loud. He is less a character, more a caricature. That is true of many of the other figures who people China-Gate, especially the corrupt policeman and the headman's matronly wife.

Is China-Gate, then, a complete washout? Far from it. There's enough talent on display for the film to be able to score a few points. The tale of 10 former discredited armymen who regroup to reclaim their honour does have a compelling core. It is staged with a degree of panache that is rare. With actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri and Danny Denzongpa in key roles, many of the characters assume believable contours. Especially Denzongpa's leukemia-afflicted Major.

 Also memorable is Shah's Sarfraz Khan, who is the butt of constant jabs by the Hindu character played by Amrish Puri, Colonel Puri. The latter has a deep-seated grouse against Sarfraz's community because the killing of his parents by rioters in 1947 still haunts him. Sarfraz, too, has lost a brother in the Meerut riots, but he is proud to be an Indian as much as anyone else. In the end, it is his unwavering heroism that shames his Hindu mate into accepting him for what he is. Too pat? Perhaps, but it is one thematic strand that stands out amid all the bloodletting and pyrotechnics that dominate the film. Much of the rest of the film doesn't quite measure up.