Asoka

Rating:
Summary: Lush and Seductive
Review: I began watching this movie at 11:00pm one night intending to watch only half of it (it is over 2 1/2 hours long). However, once I began watching, I couldn't take my eyes off of this film. The film draws you immediately into ancient India and doesn't let go until its over. It was impossible to leave my chair, even for a glass of water.

Other reviewers have detailed the plot so I won't. Instead I'll comment on some of the characters. Asoka sometimes seemed a little over the top, but he was a believable and sympathic character. The final scenes where he walks the battlefield and sees the results of his "victory" were particularly poignant. His love interest is a powerful female character who manages to be both strong and feminine. I also liked her general whose love for her was obvious but never explored in detail. The young Kalingan prince unlike other child characters wasn't annoying, and it was easy to see how he melted Asoka's heart.

The Buddhist message is never jammed down your throat. Instead it is illustrated through Asoka's journey culminating in his hollow victory, which ultimately means nothing to him.

Yes, a sequel would be nice. It would be nice to see what happens to Asoka and his love. However, I thought the movie was complete enough in and of itself. This was the story of how Asoka found Buddhism. How he spreads Buddhism is another story.

Rating:
Summary: Lush film, ending is... ???
Review: Asoka is one long seduction, a film so visually stunning as to leave me slack-jawed in amazement. The female lead is heartbreaking and tough at the same time, the male lead is occasionally stilted but overall very good. The music of this film (I cannot find the soundtrack anywhere) stuck in my head for days. The movie goes full-throttle wonderful until the end- a major bit of coitus interruptus, if I dare say so. It ends, leaving you stunned and wondering what the hell happened to Karwauki and Asoka, and what the results of his philosophical awakening were. This film cries out for a sequel, or at least another ten minutes showing us the rest of the story.

All in all, it's fabulous, but be prepared to get mad when the ending leaves you high and dry. It's more than worth the frustration for the first song alone.

Rating:
Summary: needs a sequel
Review: Unfortunately, this otherwise terrific movie ends just at the point where Asoka loses it all, which is actually when he became a truly important figure in world history. Though the events of his life are somewhat sketchy, we know that Asoka was a great leader of India in the third century B.C.--he seems to have lived from about 299 to 232 B.C. The grandson of the Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta, who was one of the earliest patrons of Buddhism, when Asoka took the throne he led a savage military campaign which eventually united much of India and even extended as far as Afghanistan. But after the particularly brutal conquest of the state of Kalinga, Asoka was consumed by remorse and gave up his warrior ways, devoting himself instead to the spread of Buddhism, which he achieved by bringing some uniformity to Buddhist edicts, sending out missionaries across much of Asia, the Middle East, and even into North Africa, and by having Buddhist maxims inscribed on stones and pillars that were then placed along main routes of the kingdom and along its borders. Though the Mauryan dynasty and the vast kingdom he had forged did not survive long after his death, Asoka is credited with transforming Buddhism from a secondary sect into one of the world's major religions.

The appeal of such a story to a filmmaker is obvious, what with its combination of warfare and religious awakening. Add in certain legends concerning his great love for the Princess Kaurwaki and you've got romance to add to the action and drama. As if that's not enough, tack on the big musical numbers and the leisurely three hour pace that characterizes Bollywood and we're talking mega-epic. Try to imagine Jerry Bruckheimer producing a collaboration between Baz Luhrmann and David Lean and you'll be nearly prepared to watch the movie.

The movie is basically divided into three acts. It opens with Asoka as a boy, watching his grandfather cast a great sword into a river. Asoka asks him why he does such a thing and is told that it is a demon blade, which demands blood whenever it is drawn. Asoka fishes it from the water and discovers, to his own horror, the truth of these words. Having grown into a willful and violent young man, Asoka represents a threat to his stepbrothers in their quest for the thrown and they try repeatedly to have him murdered. By threatening to take a vow of silence otherwise, Asoka's mother forces him to flee the capital and hide out, incognito, in the countryside. It's there that he meets Kaurwaki, who, along with her princely younger brother, is likewise fleeing dynastic mayhem in Kalinga. The young couple alternately woo and war with one another until the fates split them apart. Whether because of this separation, which Asoka comes to believe must signal Kaurwaki's death, or because it is his nature, Asoka embarks on his fratricidal path to the throne and the horrific wars that won him a vast kingdom. Eventually though, confrontations with a loyal retainer before the battle with Kalinga and with Kaurwaki and her brother after the battle show Asoka the misery he has wrought and the monster he has become. A few scant lines of text tell us the rest of the story before the credits roll.

Shahrukh Khan makes for a charismatic and soulful Asoka. Kareena Kapoor, daughter of one of India's great film families (I guess she'd be their Drew Barrymore?), is a captivating Kaurwaki. Their tentative love affair consumes the long middle section of the film, before providing the tragic final impetus for Asoka's conversion. It would seem to have made more dramatic sense to continue on with final act about Asoka's spiritual work, since that's what he's remembered for and since it would complete the arc of the film. I guess though that the rather oppressive atmosphere of Hindu nationalism in India is such that it is somewhat risky to celebrate other religions in the way that this more natural storytelling would have entailed.
The only other quarrel I have with the film is that, on video at least, it was a little bit washed out and the subtitles were white and nearly impossible to read against a light background. Hopefully at some point the film will get the quality transfer that it warrants.

GRADE : B

Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: great movie. On the dark side for most bollywood films that I've seen. Really showcases shah rukh khan's acting ability. The music is great, I've been listening to the soundtrack for months and months. I really like Kauwaki's character in this movie. If I would change anything at all I would add more to the final transformation that asoka goes through from evil to religious, it felt like it went unexplained. Otherwise, one of my all time favorite films, and yet another reason shah rukh khan is my favorite actor.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely beautiful...addictive!
Review: I loved this movie!Loved it. It is sensual and beautifully captured on film,you never want to look away from the screen. Well written,extremely well written,God help Hollywood's current hunks if Shah Rukh Khan ever comes to America! This guy can act!!!You can feel his facial expressions,and Kareena Kapoor is brilliant as his lover and warrior. This is the best film I've seen in years!5*****'s

Rating:
Summary: An unexpected treasure from India
Review: I have seen quite a bit of Indian film but none like this. This film was so different from the typical "Bollywood" cinema I was pleasantly take back by it. What was most impressive about the film was the role of Asoka. The character was portrayed with so much dimension and complexity that I felt every bit of his love, pain, loss, anger, and sorrow as I watched. The performance by Shahrukh Khan was amazing, as if he was born to play this role. The beautiful (and brave for the director didn't allow any makeup for the film's heroine, save the henna tatoos) Kaurwaki, portrayed by Kareena Kapoor reflected the female counter part to Asoka. The same intensity and raw passion showed her own journey through love, gain, and loss as Asoka.

On first sight, some viewers may be offended by the costumes worn by Kaurwaki (as it is a bit scant) but the actress carries it off well and with dignity making her fit in well with the historical setting of the piece.

The beauty and cinematic grandeur of the film was also fantastic to watch. I wish they would have put it in wide-screen however, as it cuts off a lot of the beauty of the landscape. The whole set is kept simple yet beautiful and mesmerizing, making it believable that such an emperor lived and existed at that particular time. The battle scenes were fantastic and one of the finest ever seen. It lacked the goriness of the Gladiator but it conveyed the devastation of war just as strongly.

I can go on forever with praises for the film, but I won't. Just buy it or rent it, it's worth it. The complexity of the story, the characters, and the richness of the set and cinematography puts this film on my A list. To top it off the music is beautiful and haunting, wonderfully choreographed, even if you're not into "musicals." The movie isn't a musical but it has the typical Indian film music numbers. The whole movie is pretty serious and conveys a strong message of love and peace, but subtlely so it's not so cliche.

Highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Reaction from a non-Indian big epic film lover
Review: I've seen a couple of Indian films before but not this one very good epic film from India! Bravo to the director and the cast for this marvelous film! It has a wonderfully well-crafted story/plot, great battle scenes, sword fight scenes (a bit too much kung-fu swordfighting a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a bit trite if you ask me) and amusing musical scenes (this is the first time in the film history that a major hero such as Asoka-playing both a good guy and bad guy singing and dancing; I would be surprised if Darth Vader would sing and dance in a musical version of Star Wars! LOL!). Although a couple interesting things that caught my eyes: it's the way Santosh Sivan applied his cinematographic skills to the film, even though he had his own cinematographer working with him; his camera work is astonishingly mesmerizing and strong, although he could have expand his scenery scope to show the landscape of India in the 3rd century BC and could rely on special F/X for it (the same way Ridley Scott showcased ancient Rome and the Empire's provinces in "Gladiator").

The performance of the cast is very good and well done; Shah Rukh Khan is excellent as Asoka and so is the beautiful and sexy Kareena Kapoor as the princess Kaurwaki. There are three guys in the film cleverly reminded me of the Three Stooges for interluding comic relief (perhaps Santosh Sivan is a fan of the 3 Stooges?). I think Shah Rukh Khan should try his movie role in America's Hollywood, he'll be good as Jackie Chan is.

Overall, the film is great, the only two negatives I have are the white subtitles (which sometimes is very hard to read against a bright background and half of the times, it's too quick in dialogue transition) and lack of special F/X to show ancient India in dramatic fashions a la Gladiator.

Go rent it. It's worth watching it.

Rating:
Summary: Humanitarian after Total Victory
Review: I was not prepared to like Asoka better than Lagaan but I did. Visually, the film was absolutely stunning. The battle scenes in particular were magnificent. The plot structure was intricate enough to sustain attention but direct enough not to confuse. The philosophical messages conveyed are more subtle than one would expect. On the order of the best Victorian love tragedies, the primary love story is one of barely missed meetings between the lovers, obscured identities and lost opportunities that result in appalling losses. The musical sequences were not as appealing to me as the fighting sequences, frankly, but followed the common pattern of Indian films. Visually, however, they were breathtaking at certain moments and although the lyrics were banal for the most part, there were flashes of great beauty. As I am not fluent in Hindi, and only remember a little from a childhood spent in that part of the world, I basically saw the film through the prism of the subtitles. (As is often the case, subtitles written in white virtually became invisible against light backgrounds. Surely this can be remedied with all of the sophisticated methods that are available nowadays!) I enjoyed the swordplay and use of weapons enormously and found the combats far more realistic than many of the contemporary Chinese martial art scenes in historical films.

Ultimately, the message I found in the film may not be the one intended as the curious progress of Asoka's life gave him the opportunity to embrace a path of non-violence, love and peace AFTER he had gained total victory and consolidated his empire through the most relentless and pitiless warfare. Obviously, an attempt is made to show that he was revolted by his excesses of violence and that his destruction of all whom he loved was the catalyst for his ultimate transformation. A realist, however, would be more inclined to think that it is easy enough to become a wise and benevolent humanitarian after all obstacles and enemies have been cleared from one's path. As a matter of fact, his saintly Buddhist wife, Devi, actually saves Asoka's life by killing a would-be assassin in a pinch, so there is not one character in the film who is consistently 'non-violent'. Events dictate responses of violence or non-violence in this film, and indeed, Asoka himself only became a 'killing machine' after having survived over a dozen assassination attempts by agents of his siblings and after having lost his beloved mother and believing he had lost his first, abiding love to assassins.

As some one with a lifelong interest in comparative mythology, it is easy to see comparisons in this film between Asoka and the classical Indian tale of Shiva and Kali, mirrored in ancient tales from Mesopotamia and Canaan. Asoka has a 'berserker's' concentration when he engages in combat, and once he has entered into that trance-like state where sword indeed becomes one with the arm and soul, he is oblivious to every one and everything until there is nothing left to kill. The dance of life and death is beautifully portrayed and weaponplay is lyrical and hypnotic. The violence on screen is implied rather than being shown graphically for the most part. In this way, the film differs substantially from Japanese historical films about wars. Although there is a great deal of killing, there are no tasteless scenes of violence.

As is so often the case in Indian films, there are comic characters who act as relief, although the film fundamentally is serious and very intense.

There are not that many films that I wish to see more than once, and thus not many that I wish to own. If the price of this one were not so steep, I gladly would purchase Asoka.

Rating:
Summary: Like A Subcontinent Braveheart
Review: Maybe this isn't the most intellectual summary of Asoka, but it was one I developed after asking Indian friends about the film and got a similar reaction.

Clearly this movie is split into two parts. The first involves Asoka's incognito journeys though the Indian wilderness in a sequence much like a vision quest. The second is a good deal more serious. Sparks between the two main players are flying everywhere. Although with English subtitles, watching the film doesn't get tedious as there is so much action and visual beauty.

Americans might find the musical numbers a la Michael Jackson't Thriller a little odd if not laughable, but overall this is a good film for anyone who's never before seen Indian filmmaking (it's the biggest film industry in the world).

Rating:
Summary: ASOKA: K-K-Kaurwaki?
Review: ASOKA is a simple tale of sibling rivalry at its most heinous in a battle for the throne, filial duty, plus boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl etc, and how a conqueror realizes he has gained nothing by his brutality, and thereafter embarks on a journey of self-realisation and redemption through peace and Buddhism.A simple tale, but made complex by mind-boggling logistics (600 horses, 50 elephants, 6,000 extras together on the battlefield), thought-provoking themes and lyrical cinematography loaded with symbolism and mystique. Moments of levity (`that's not a weapon.THIS is a weapon!' reminding me of `Crocodile Dundee') together with aweinspiring locations and captivating romance, provide a gentle contrast to the gruesome spectacle of war.

One of the highlights for me was the music. In spite of owning the CD and seeing video clips on MTV, I was unprepared for the lush, sumptuous sounds enveloping me like an embrace, combined with alluring picturization. I would have loved to have seen more of the underwater scene in ROSHNI SE - innovative and full of grace and playfulness.

The Baadshah (King) of Bollywood, SHAH RUKH KHAN, demonstrates his personal aura of majesty and magnetism- classy, gutsy, seductive and intense, he IS Asoka incarnate: imperious, vengeful or romantic, .every move and emotion delivering a message of Grace, Truth and Sincerity straight to the viewer's heart.

More famously known for his exuberant dancing, irrepressible energy and audacity, Shah Rukh's flawless portrayal is so internalized and contained, with moments of chilling stillness, that it's difficult to remember any of his previous persona. Shah Rukh in his prime is a formidable, unforgettable vision.

Another highlight was Shah Rukh's graceful Kallaripayattu (martial art) and one-on-one combat scenes (especially with the enthralling snake sword) almost balletic in execution (no pun intended) - giving added dimension to the phrase `Poetry In Motion'.

Shah Rukh's intensity reminds me of Martin Sheen who was 35 in Francis Ford Coppola's `Apocalypse Now', a highlight of Hollywood history in its time, the same age as Shah Rukh in Asoka.

The entire cast lends excellent support, with many outstanding scenes, and no disappointments. Karriena is bewitching, young Suraj beguiling, and Rahul Dev fiercely protective, to help flesh out Santosh Sivan's magnificent movie. Ajith Kumar impresses more every time I see this movie, and successfully evokes sympathy from an unsympathetic role.

Costume and set design forsake the typical lavish `royal' trimmings, giving a clean, timeless look of elegant simplicity to haunting visuals in soft muted colours (except for the rich, rich, red and stunning peacock blue fabrics) in subtle harmony with the luxurious foliage. God bless Santosh Sivan, a visionary in an industry of mediocrity! (I wonder if he's met Francis Ford Coppola?)

History of Asoka? .not necessarily!

History of Cinema? .but definitely!

The ending left me panting to know what happened next, much like young `Arya' wanting `Pavan' to continue his story-telling ~ is this a clever way to make us beg for a sequel: ASOKA Part II? Mr Sivan, Sir, are you listening?

FINAL NOTE: The exquisite Book on The Making of Asoka (Mushtaq Shiekh, writer, HarperCollins Publishers) completes and further enriches the magical, mythical experience of ASOKA.

*SANDI* SRK's AUSSIE FAN #1