sshogben

First Day, First Show ... and well worth it.

This engrossing tale gripped us right from the opening credit sequence. Simple animation recalled the thousand-year-old Sanskrit myth of 'Vikram aur Betaal' which probes the universal question of good versus evil and suggests that human life is more accurately understood as shades of grey rather than either. A "good" king Vikramaditya seeks to save his people by subduing an "evil" spirit/entity called Betaal (in many versions of the myth not precisely human) only to learn through a series of challenging moral questions posed by Betaal how nothing may be quite what it seems.

Writer-director duo Pushkar & Gayatri deftly shift us into what seems at first a disarmingly simple police encounter that will nonetheless resonate later throughout the film: "good" cop Inspector Vikram (Saif Ali Khan) and his special police team ambush and annihilate the gang of "evil" criminal Vedha Betal (Hrithik Roshan). The central conflict of our story develops as Vedha stages his own surrender to Vikram in order to force Vikram to solve three great questions. And therein lies the unexpectedly deep and compelling tale.

So satisfying, to walk out of the cinema with so much to think about!

Hrithik Roshan yet again proves how he is not just an industry superstar but a super actor, completely submerged into the persona of a complex and challenging character who rivets our attention throughout. I loved how directors Pushkar & Gayatri deliberately keep his Vedha mysterious and almost unknowable ... he retains his secrets! ... perhaps in homage to the not-quite-human Betaal from the original myths. But in "Vikram Vedha" Hrithik portrays for once the catalyst, rather than protagonist, of our film. Saif Ali Khan's Vikram is truly our central character about whose evolving journey and discovery the whole movie turns. And I confess, it is Saif who really surprised me here. For all the ups and downs of his long and on the whole successful career as a leading film actor, never before had I seen Saif Ali Khan bring forth this much power and subtlety to any role. And the two actors, together, play off each other brilliantly.

The supporting cast - particularly Radhika Apte as Vikram's wife who is also the lawyer defending Vedha and Rohit Saraf as Vedha's innocent younger brother - are uniformly excellent and well cast. But "Vikram Vedha" is never really their show. Here, and most rightly, all focus remains throughout on our two compelling title characters.

Special shout-out to the exceptionally good art direction, which due to the horrifically deadly COVID-19 pandemic prevailing in India during time of production had to be largely Lucknow and Kanpur rebuilt on backlots overseas in Abu Dhabi.

If the action choreography never quite reaches the international standard we'd seen in other recent Hrithik films such as "Bang Bang!" (2014) or "War" (2019), there are still some particularly memorable scenes. Any scene where Hrithik's Vedha and Saif's Vikram are going head-to-head, definitely. There is a Vedha gun battle scene shortly before the climax in a ruined roof-less structure with an open looping staircase that was nicely shot. My special favourite, though, is a mid-film rooftop 'parkour' sequence where the Vedha character escapes by nonchalantly walking - not running - up down and around while the feverishly seeking police madly hunt for him at street level: perfectly illustrated the character.

Much recommended viewing!

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.

Flatly: a TERRIBLE piece of filmmaking, on all levels.

(Of the, what, 5 Indian movies opening this weekend, the friend who talked me into "Tanhaji" actually apologized for our not taking in a different show!)

Weak direction. Out-of-control screenplay. One dimensional characters. Uninspired performances (by a good cast that should have known better). Uninspired music. Fight sequences that seem to have no end, without meaning or believability. Blatantly intrusive anachronisms abound.

LAUGHABLY bad visual effects carry this turkey to a whole new dimension. 'Horses', 'Elephants', and 'People' that neither look nor move like horses, elephants, or people. Almost the entire movie must have been shot green-screen, because even interior scenes seem to exist only in poorly designed 'Never Where, Never When' VFX space -- executed to low grade video game animation, I'll swear, from 30 years ago.

Indian cinema IS better than this!!!

Tanhaji is said to be "based on a true story". But this movie is SO BAD, those represented should be rising in their graves!