China Gate

"China gate" has nothing to do with China or the great wall. It's simply a mission led by an exiled army officer with his court-martialed team comprising of old officers to free a village from the tyranny of a dreaded dacoit. Sounds like "Sholay" or Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai." Well, the direction is by a prominent film-maker with an eminent cast in the lead. But the things don't work. The film fails to grip through its hackneyed narrative full of cliches and improbabilities. The acting is good and direction tries to impart some qualities; but still the film is muddled and distasteful which is hard to stay with. Anything, you will remember in the movie is the item song "Chamma Chamma," which gets a greater coverage in the film than its plot.

Rating: 1 out of 4 stars.

An excellent idea originally thought up by the Late Akiro Kurosawa copied very successfully in Sholay and very haphazardly shown with total and complete failure in ChinaGate. Inspired(this word has been given a whole new dimension by Anu Mallik) by the Seven Samurais this is a story about 10 men disgraced in war out to redeem their glory. Great till here. Enter the likes of Om Puri, Danny, Amrish Puri and Naserruddin Shah and u think its going to be a cracker. Enter Viju Khote, Sameer Soni and some others whom I can't even name and this movie becomes absolutely unwatchable. Mamta Kulkarni is in a totally unglamorous role and we all know about those accusations which are being thrown around thick and fast. Though she does give a emotional and certain sense to the movie which goes absolutely berserk at times. U have very bad background music, which rings in your ears and horrible cinematography which fails to capture the better shots. The shot in which vultures hover around waiting for the corpse is great but it is highly overdone and occurs at least 15 times with all those irritating loud noises in the background. And u have a completely hopeless Sameer Soni who is forever hovering around Mamta trying to get a peek into her u know what. The action sequences r also trite with the same things being done repeatedly. Twice in the movie u see horsemen after being shot moving back thru the air as their horses move forward. Though this is the normal trick it is rarely possible to discern it in the movie. The movie is salvaged by the excellent 'Chamma Chamma' dance number by Urmila. The proof of this is the poster outside Plaza which has Urmila covering the maximum amount of area in the poster as compared to any other single person. The choreography and music is excellent though the lyrics hardly mean a thing(does it really matter anyway). The other saving graces are Danny with his great diction and Nasseruddin Shah with his extraordinary dialog delivery specially the one that he tells Amrish Puri after saving his life. Om Puri fails to impress as much though he is passable. The others make a downright ass of themselves and makes u wonder if such people can ever be in the Army. A great military movie has been hog washed to a typical Bollywood mirch masala. I think Rajkumar Santoshi was sleeping during this movie. Said to be the costliest movie with an estimated budget of Rs. 20 crores you wonder at the end of the 3 hr ordeal as to where the money was spent. Disappointing fare on the whole.

Comparing it with Seven Samurai or Sholay will be too ambitious, but writing it off like the way many have done is a bit too harsh for a film which is beautiful in its own way.Many would say that it is a bit too tad and stretched.They are right.May be if it was made today, the length would have been half an hour less , making the film much more sleek than it is.Character portrayal of a few of the members of the gang is shady.Cinematography at times is sketchy .Sans these errs,the film stands tall.It is great to see many of the stalwarts of parallel movies are coming in the same frame for a commercial effort.Brilliant job done by the two Puris,Danny and Naseeruddin.Seeing Mamta Kulkarni in a complete different avatar from the streamy roles she was known for is a welcome break.The movie has its high points like the cattle scene or the Sarfraz-Puri relation portrayal and definitely an engaging climax.Mukesh Tiwari is swashbuckling as Jageera, a character which has unfortunately been forgotten,failing to secure a place amongst the likes of the Gabbars or Mogambos.However, the highest achievement of the film lies in its central theme- a band of retired army men who have been deserted by the society in different ways succeed in the upheaval task of thwarting a menacing bandit's rule despite several stubborn obstacles.In the way they make you laugh,love and cry with them.The theme song by Sonu Nigam is lovable.So is the gyration of Urmila Matondkar in Chhamma Chhamma.Overall, even though it has gone into oblivion with the passage of time, it is a masterpiece from a very good film maker.

The story of China gate is basically stolen from Kurosawas Seven Samurai, which isn't very strange since it's a great story. Seen in a cinema in Bombay, it was an extraordninary experience in every way. The action scenes were explosive, to say the least, and the characters absolutely marvelous. The way the plot suddenly is interrupted by amazing dance- and song performences is indeed a different experience for western people filled with the American way of making films.

If you didn't like Schindlers list, this is the movie for you. It's sure to give any mindless Hollywood action pic an even match.

If a viewer has seen both the classic films "Sholay" (1975) and "The Seven Samurai" (1954) ... "China Gate" (1998) offers zero suspense whatsoever.

Credited as an homage to the Japanese master director Akira Kurosawa, "China Gate" is better described as COMPLETELY derivative of the two referenced classic movies. I do not make this assertion lightly. But "China Gate" was so poorly done that at every single major crisis point I predicted EXACTLY what was going to happen, simply because the equivalent character in "Sholay" did this or Toshiro Mafune in "The Seven Samurai" did that. Every Single Time.

I had thought, when I bought the movie, how could a film possibly go wrong with such a fantastic cast of great veteran actors?

Casting the two Puris -- Om Puri and Amrish Puri -- as, well, two Puris was a nice touch, I'll grant you. Naseeruddin Shah delivered, as did Danny Denzongpa (always one of India's most underrated actors, in my opinion). But the rest of the ten 'old soldiers' were given nothing to work with. I never could even remember their names. The role allotted to poor Tinnu Anand, for example, was less memorable than that given the character's dog. (The dog's name was Jigar. ;-) Mukesh Tiwari tried hard, in his film début. But since he was tasked with a carbon-copy impression of Gabbar from "Sholay", his villain Jageera was on the whole less interesting than the character's pet vultures (who were overused to a fault).

More than anything, though, "China Gate" strikes me as an example of a director overwhelmed by an overambitious project.

EVERY department seemed out of control. Scripting, for sure. Others here have suggested "China Gate" is half-an-hour too long. I would argue the whole first hour could have been tightened up to about 5 minutes; it took forever to finally get our characters to The Mission. Editing was horrible. The film is said to have had a huge, almost unprecedented budget. But if so, the budget did NOT end up 'on the screen'. For what should have been an action extravaganza, the stunt work never felt fresh or interesting. As others have noted, botched stunt shots were frequently left in the finished film that should have been left on the cutting room floor. And even when the director finally gets round to a 'big' scene with his top actors, he completely buries the dialogue under overheavy use of what has to be THE MOST INTRUSIVE background score I've ever experienced in a movie!

Rajkumar Santoshi is a veteran director, and I have enjoyed some of his other projects. But in reflection, I have thought best of what were always his comedy films. Perhaps an attempted epic drama such as this was simply beyond his scope?

Deeply disappointed in this one.

4/10 solely in honour of some great actors who gave a game performance in a losing effort.