Chittagong Movie Reviews

In any movie, casting plays an important role. Once the script is in place, the director's vision is fleshed out through a casting director who meticulously sifts through an actor's aptitude to adapt to a set role designed especially for that particular film. This task gets even more tedious when it is a period film that you are dealing with. Honey Trehan deserves a round of applause for bringing together director Bedabrata Pain's vision with a cast

A little-known but hugely significant chapter of the Indian freedom struggle constitutes the narrative kernel of Chittagong, scientist-turned-filmmaker Bedabrata Pain's directorial debut. As far as period sagas go, this is anything but average fare. This simple, sure-handed and easy-flowing film strikes no false notes, nor does it fall prey to any creative ambiguity. The director knows exactly what he wants to mine from the pages of history and he extracts

Not many are aware of the Chittagong uprising that occurred in a corner of Bengal. A band of brave school-going teenagers turned revolutionaries, led by a fiery school teacher, launched five simultaneous attacks on British strongholds. It is a critical incident, one conveniently ignored by history textbooks. But it’s a story that definitely deserves telling. This subject had earlier been approached by Ashutosh Gowariker (Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey) but he failed

Restructuring the long-gone era is an arduous task. It's also demanding, laborious and strenuous. Most importantly, the person taking on the mantle of narrating a real-life story ought to do wide-ranging research on the subject matter. There cannot be shortcuts. Besides comprehensive detailing that goes into making the story come alive on the big screen, the raconteur also needs to ensure that the cinematic interpretation is defined and based on facts

Who is your master? Someone who teaches you? Someone who rules you? Or your own inner voice? Chittagong answers this in sensitive style, following Jhunku Roy, the 14-year-old boy-soldier in schoolteacher Surya Sen's historical 1930s uprising against the British. Born to privilege, Jhunku is torn between studying at Oxford and being tutored by District Magistrate Wilkinson (John) versus discovering his own inner self. When his friend is shot dead

A near-forgotten slice of Indian history comes to luminous life in NASA scientist- turned-filmmaker Bedabrata Pain’s first feature. Simply called ‘Chittagong’, it tells the story of a group of rag-tag revolutionaries who tried ‘liberating’ their tiny patch of Bengal from the British. Rag-tag not because they didn’t have the will, but because they lacked the wherewithal, a state common to all freedom fighters at the time, in the 1930s : the White man had such a stranglehold

It’s a lost generation perhaps. Fired by the ideal to exterminate the British colonialists, a group of boys and girls, barely out of their teens, gave up their homes, families and eventually their lives during the freedom struggle. It’s a vital chapter in history, set in an area of tumult (now in Bangladesh), which tends to be undervalued, if not overlooked. Defying movie bazaar norms, Chittagong co-written and directed by Nasa scientist Bedabrata Pain

You know the story if you have seen Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se. Chittagong reprises the same slice of history, only with a more solid cast. Manoj Bajpayee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, offbeat cinema's two most explosive talents, are the only familiar faces here but debutant director Bedabrata Pain scores with apt casting of mostly greenhorns for the other characters, too. The film narrates the historic Chittagong Uprising of the 1930s. The town of Chittagong

A near-forgotten slice of Indian history comes to luminous life in NASA scientist- turned-filmmaker Bedabrata Pain’s first feature. Simply called ‘Chittagong’, it tells the story of a group of rag-tag revolutionaries who tried ‘liberating’ their tiny patch of Bengal from the British. Rag-tag not because they didn’t have the will, but because they lacked the wherewithal, a state common to all freedom fighters at the time, in the 1930s : the White man had such a stranglehold

It’s a lost generation perhaps. Fired by the ideal to exterminate the British colonialists, a group of boys and girls, barely out of their teens, gave up their homes, families and eventually their lives during the freedom struggle. It’s a vital chapter in history, set in an area of tumult (now in Bangladesh), which tends to be undervalued, if not overlooked. Defying movie bazaar norms, Chittagong co-written and directed by the NASA scientist Bedabrata Pain

Aah! The joy of watching a well-made historical film that tugs you is simply indescribable! From beginning to end, you can’t help but......

Chittagong, directed by Bedabrata Pain, is a story culled straight out of history books, yet the film is so loaded with heart that it easily resonates with you. The theme is familiar – it does, after all, tread the same ground as Ashutosh Gowariker’s Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se (2010), capturing the events surrounding one of the earliest chapters in India’s freedom struggle – the Chittagong uprising of the 1930s, led by school teacher Surya Sen against the mighty British

A chapter in Indian history forms the backdrop of director Bedabrata Pain’s debut which chronicles the struggle of a bunch of freedom fighters in undivided Bengal. Based on true but lesser-known incidents in the 1930s, the movie is about a group of teenagers — led by school teacher Surya Sen (Manoj Bajpayee) — who gave an unequal but brave fight to the British authorities in Chittagong (now in Bangladesh). The film is seen through the eyes of the youngest soldier

"Bharat chhod! Bharat chhod!" The fury of the quit-India chant is what stands out the most in Bedabrata Pain's inevitably rousing Chittagong, the words here spat out with profane indignation, diametrically unlike the nearly sing-song "chhodo" request we're acquainted with at school. "Bha-Rat Chhod" is the cry, mirroring in tone and metric structure that most common of North Indian curses (where Mother stands in for Motherland.) Makes sense

Only when passion takes over, can one decide to quit a job as a NASA scientist and become a Bollywood filmmaker. Bedabrata Pain's 'Chittagong' brings to life the historic characters that were long lost into the pages of the past. Kudos to Pain for making this movie a beautiful remembrance that celebrates his zeal for filmmaking, and not just a boring history lecture. The movie throws light on the pre-independence uprising that shook

Based on true series of events, as is declared at the very beginning of the film, 'Chittagong' is about a bunch of revolutionaries (Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Raj Kumar Yadav, Jaideep Ahlawat, Vega Tamotia) led by Manoj Bajpayee who stays on to be calm in the most adverse of situations and comes with a skill of marshalling his resources in the best possible way. While kids are hired for the job, it is arrival of Jhunku (played by Delzad Hiwale

But, as the wise say, expectation is the root cause of disappointment. Although authentic in its depiction of the era in which the story is set, impressive in its scale, and consistent in its tone and mood, Chittagong isn’t too engaging a film. Partly because of the complexity of the plot, the film is unable to weave the different strands of the lives of its multiple characters into a single adventure

There are probably more movies on the Independence Struggle than the actual number of years the British ruled us. So what is so different about Chittagong? A lot! Chittagong focuses on a small part of the entire uprising, the cast doesn’t consist of big-budget stars, Bedabrata Pain, the writer, director and producer of this film is a former NASA scientist who has ventured into filmmaking with a sensitive topic and lastly, towards the end, there is a testimonial