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Lagaan: Once upon a Time in India
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List Price: $24.95
Special Price: $49.57
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Starring: Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley, Paul Blackthorne, Suhasini Mulay
Directed By: Ashutosh Gowariker
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780767883276
Format: Color
ISBN: 0767883276
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Release Date: 2002-06-25
Running Time: 225
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 2002-05-08
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Editorial Reviews:
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Would you believe the most enchanting musical of the year is an almost four-hour-long epic about a ragtag group of 19th-century Indian farmers who form a cricket team to take on an arrogant British captain? The old-fashioned Hollywood musical is alive and well in India's Bollywood industry, where the joyful explosion of music and dance and innocent romance abounds in sweeping epics. In this infectious tale of bloodless revolution, the underdog outcasts and oddballs of a fractured village pull together into a unified team to take on the oppressive colonial Brits at their own game. Think The Longest Yard meets The Seven Samurai by way of Rudyard Kipling, with cricket bats, choreographed dance numbers, romantic triangles, and a rousing call to solidarity. There are no surprises, but what spirit, what color, what good fun! --Sean Axmaker
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspiring Story of the Human Spirit
Comment: A deeply spiritual movie with redemptive themes that captures the courage and determination of the human spirit, Lagaan will transport you to a time and place you'll wish you were part of. Can an Indian movie with subtitles hold your attention for nearly four hours? Our family has watched the DVD so many times we've actually purchased our second copy, and prefer to watch it in Hindi. The characters pull us in, and we feel part of the community; which love story will prevail? Will the subjugated and tyrannized be liberated? Will a seed of hope grow into victory?
Set in rural India prior to gaining its independence from Great Britain, this story weaves together characters from a local British Cantonment, Indian Rajas (regional kings) and poor farmers forced to pay `Lagaan' or tax that has moved beyond burdensome to oppressive. Seizing an opportune moment, one of the members of a village accepts a challenge from the British officer in charge: they must beat the British in their game of Cricket to be free of Lagaan for three years, or face triple the tax rate. The story unfolds as Bhuvan convinces members of his village to learn the game and confront the arrogant captain in a fight that for the village is not only about winning, but literally about survival.
There is much to like about Lagaan. Of the many powerful scenes, some which may have you on the edge of your seat, two in particular are transcendent. In order to complete the team, Bhuvan asks an `outcast' member of the community to join. The other team members are indignant, as the caste system seems this person as worthless scum and his presence as polluting the `system.' In a powerfully moving scene, Bhuvan makes a stirring speech that puts in perspective what is before them. They must come together or literally starve. Gasps are heard as he touches Kutchra (the outcast), but hearts are changed and tears flow as one who has never known acceptance is welcomed as a key member. (As a Christian, I saw a powerful illustration here of the love and acceptance Jesus Christ offers.) Later, facing what appears to be certain defeat, the women of the village unite before their temple and begin to sing a song of worship to Krishna --a prayer for intervention. The scene is stirring: the devotion and trust in a deity is a turning point for their despair and catalyzes their spirits to face the challenge the next morning. If only every church possessed faith and worship so innocent, transparent, and `authentic.'
Even the coming monsoon rain carries a spiritual message of hope. Is God somehow displeased with them? The villagers' luck changes as the movie begins with drought but ends with a downpour.
Customer Rating:
Summary: captivating
Comment: My nephew recommended this one to me. He's a 15 year who had to watch it in school. It required him to read subtitles, listen to foreign mucic and watch people dancing around. With all of that he told me that he and his friends were amazed at how they were sitting on the edge of their seats and rooting for the characters. With that kind of recommendation it was a must purchase. He was right on the money. I loved this story, more historical in it's telling. I also learned a great deal from it. I highly recommend this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lagaan DVD
Comment: If you are new to Bollywood film viewing, why not start at the top? This film, Lagaan, is one of the very best
and completely entertaining.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cricket Anyone? ~ More Than Just A Game, More Than Just A Movie
Comment: Note: Hindi with English subtitles. If you live in the America's you'll need a Multi-Region player to watch this DVD.
This movie served as my introduction to Bollywood and the Indian film industry. Looks like I started with the very best! What an amazing, enjoyable movie! It will make you laugh, it will make you cry. It will have you watching a band of determined Indians play cricket against the villianous English soldiers. A game, that if you're like me, you don't even know how to play but before you realize it you're rooting for the good guys like you knew exactly what's going on. That in itself is a feat of monumental proportions.
The second most incredible feat accomplished by this film is the fact that its 3 hour and 45 minute running time flew by like it was 2 hours in length. I honestly cannot remember the last time I became so completely engrossed in a film that time came to a standstill. In other words, I was held spellbound by this film. Long after the closing credits rolled by the music and dancing continued to resonate within my mind and body for days.
Thank you Aamir Khan for bringing this film to a worldwide audience and thanks to an amazing cast of characters that made this truly one of the most memorable, exhilarating cinematic experiences ever!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A village in India triples-down on its taxes over a unfriendly game of cricket
Comment: I am still in the toe dipping stage when it comes to seeing Bollywood musicals. I would say that my first one was "Bride and Prejudice" except that it was made in England and not India, so the correct answer would be "Dil Se..," which I checked out because I was hooked on the song Chal Chaiyya Chaiyya," which Spike Lee used at the start of "Inside Man." I picked "Lagaan" as my next Bollyhood film because it appeared to be the highest rated one I could find, and had the reputation of being the most expensive and successful Bollywood film ever made when it came out. After having spent an entire afternoon watching it I can certainly understand why it has such a lofty reputation.
The full title of the film is "Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India," which I did not know at the time I watched it. That revelation is intriguing because it fosters an implicit comparison between this 2001 film from director Ashutosh Gowariker and the Sergio Leone movies "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Once Upon a Time in America" (but not the Robert Rodriguez film "Once Upon a Time in Mexico"). The setting is a small village in the north of India in 1893, when the country is under the rule of Queen Victoria's British Empire. The land has been suffering from drought for over a year and the villagers and their Raja wants to be exempted from the crippling tax ("lagaan") that they owe the British government. The snobbish Captain Andrew Russell (Paul Blackthorne) makes a counter-offer: the village can play his cricket team. If the villagers win they will not have to pay the lagaan for three years, but if the English team wins they will have to pay three-times the lagaan. Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), a young farmer, takes the bet to the dismay of his friends and the rest of the village, only one of whom has ever played cricket before. But the villagers have an unexpected ally in Russell's sister, Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley), who knows the bet is unfair and decides to help teach Bhuvan and the others the game. Elizabeth is clearly smitten with Bhuvan, much to the consternation of Gauri (Aamir Khan), the young woman who assumes Bhuvan is her intended.
Bhuvan is oblivious to his being the point in common on this particular love triangle, because his attention is first and foremost on the big match. One of the reasons that this movie runs three hours and forty-four minutes is because it devotes the last third of the film to the cricket match. The cricket match takes several days to play, so it makes sense that the last third of the film is all about the match. Now, it could be that the idea of watching a movie where the final conflict is a really long cricket match might dissuade you from seeing the movie more than the fact it is almost four hours long with subtitles because most of the dialogues and songs are in Hindi. But since the villagers are learning the game that allows those of us in the audience who have never seen a cricket match to pick up enough to appreciate what is happening at the end. This is of no small importance because the rules of cricket come into play several times throughout the match, as do the particular characteristics of the various villagers on the cricket team, and I ended up like that part of the film more than the charming practice of breaking into giant production numbers periodically throughout the film (including the best training montage set to music since the original "Rocky"). So there are plenty of reasons for wanting to check out this film, even if you cannot watch it all in one sitting (but there is an Intermission and a opportunity to make dinner in which curry would be the dominant spice).
In terms of special features there is only one "Unseen Scene" included on the DVD, but it runs over 17 minutes. I have been trying to figure out if it was cut because somehow having a movie run four hours and one minute instead of three hours and 44 minutes makes bad economic sense for movie theaters in India, or if it is because in setting up one of the key parts of the big match it might give away too much, or maybe because Captain Russell goes beyond the pale in his treatment of Elizabeth. The deleted scene reinforces the interesting idea that there is a clear line of demarcation between Russell's cricket team and the rest of the English in India. It is Elizabeth who articulates the idea that what her brother is doing is not fair, but Russell's commanding officers believe in fair play as well. Notice their behavior during the match and how they applaud the best of both teams, as if they did not have a vested interest in the outcome. The irony that the English players who pride themselves on being great sportsmen are lousy sports is pretty blatant and ultimately we dismiss them as racist caricatures. That is a minor complaint all things considered (which would include the history of British colonialism on the sub-continent), because "Lagaan" is pretty entertaining. No wonder it has the reputation it enjoys.
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