Shanghai Movie Reviews

PVR Pictures, DBP and NFDC’s Shanghai is a political thriller set in Bharat Nagar, a fictitious town in India. IAS officer T.A. Krishnan (Abhay Deol) is the vice-chairman of IBP, a business infrastructure project that is to be executed in the small town of Bharat Nagar. As Krishnan is in the good books of the chief minister of the state, Madamji (Supriya Pathak), and her principal secretary, Kaul (Farooq Sheikh), he is scheduled to be promoted to a higher post

He is acknowledged for creating high-quality cinema. Right from KHOSLA KA GHOSLA to OYE LUCKY! LUCKY OYE! to LOVE SEX AUR DHOKHA, Dibakar Banerjee's movies have been lapped up by spectators. He typically picks up avant-garde subject matters and his latest flick SHANGHAI is no exception. KHOSLA KA GHOSLA, OYE LUCKY! LUCKY OYE! and LOVE SEX AUR DHOKHA presented diverse stories. Now Dibakar presents the much-anticipated thriller SHANGHAI

At first glance, the irony is staggering. A country pretending to be another, brighter country, being shown up by a film that itself borrows form and content from another country. Yet so strident is Dibakar Banerjee's voice as a filmmaker that even this adaptation -- of Vassilis Vassilikos' Z, about a wholly different time and political situation -- is turned into a strikingly relevant story of our times and our crimes. From collision to collusion, it's remarkable

Dibakar Banerjee has set a benchmark for quality in film-making. His topics are intense, which elicits shock and awe. KHOSLA KA GHOSLA and LOVE SEX AUR DHOKA did just that. SHANGHAI is his latest proof of how to enamor the viewer with a realistic plot shot within the framework of the buzz, grime and crime of everyday life. There is no refinement in the quality of the lighting. A deliberate move to give the film an 'I can identify with it' element

Here at long last is a Hindi film that dares to defy the conventions of its chosen genre. Shanghai is a no-frills but searing political thriller that is under-wired with intelligence and nerve, both cinematic and ideological. Set in a small town where politics, big business and the underworld are on the same side in an organized conspiracy to deceive an already dispossessed populace, Shanghai pushes mainstream Hindi cinema into the outer flanks of a zone

You love biryani but from its numerous varieties, you particularly savour the Lucknow Dum variety. After a stressful work day, if somebody offers you a plateful of that for dinner, you feel your whole day is made. Now, fate plays a real nasty game and your work takes you to a place where you get everything but that dish. Six years pass by and you don't get to taste a morsel of that Dum Biryani. And then, suddenly out of the blue, somebody plants a plateful in front of you

There are some films that you watch, not because you want (as Vidya Balan claims in ‘The Dirty Picture’) “entertainment, entertainment, entertainment”, but because they are a reflection of the times we live in, and if these movies didn’t get made, these chaotic times wouldn’t be chronicled for eternity. Dibakar Banerjee certainly seems determined to be that chronicler for India. In his fourth film “Shanghai”, Banerjee keeps the grittiness of “Love, Sex Aur Dhokha” or

Writer-director Dibakar Banerjee and co-writer Urmi Juvekar tell this brutal story with minimal drama. There is nothing high-pitched here, except Kalki’s one-note performance.Shanghai warms up slowly, so you need to have patience — especially in the first half. But the pleasure of the film is in the details. Shanghai doesn’t provide the comfort of answers or happy endings. But it forces us to ask urgent questions. It is the best Hindi film I’ve seen this year. I strongly urge you to make time for it.

Shanghai works not just because it excels in its genre. But for the people that you see in the film – their problems, actions and the situations thrown at them which the audience can easily relate to. The gritty milieu and an equally edgy soundtrack play an important role in keeping you engaged. Also, the use of satire is evident: tragedy and comedy, death and life, exist side by side.

It may be a long time until another Shanghai comes out. Don’t miss it.

Okay, so there are no towering 'erections' here - like in the famed Chinese city of the same name. Of course, it's 'election' (now how does the Orient pronounce that?) time and promises abound. The age-old joke, "I will make a Paris/ Shanghai/ London/ New York out of this city if elected!" is still swallowed by a gulping 'erectorate' (oops, electorate)! And that is the intense premise of Dibakar Banerjee's Shanghai. It's gut-wrenching, it's 'Made in India', unadulterated, 100% desi maal

Shanghai is consistently watchable despite these lapses. I’m going with three-and-a-half out of five for Dibakar Banerjee’s ‘Shanghai’. It’s a good film from one of Hindi cinema’s most exciting filmmakers, just not great.

Here, he is clearly on the outside. ‘Shanghai’ is a good film. Most of it is scarily plausible, sharply observed and sharply executed, except that distance which has Banerji telegraph some of his punches, making ‘Shanghai’ stop just this short of being great. But it is an important, relevant film that demands to be watched not just for what it is saying, but for how it is saying it — angrily, fearlessly, pointing out, as a line in one of the film’s songs puts it, both the ‘gur’ and the ‘gobar’ in this, our Bharat.

To sum, Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai walks the thin line between mainstream and meaningful cinema, and does so beautifully. The rare, well-deserving Rs100cr film? Who cares! There’s more to cinema than box office records and opening weekend numbers; Shanghai is the perfect example. Watch.

On a candid note, Shanghai is a story that one has witnessed several times before in cinema. What makes it a decent watch then is Dibakar Banerjee's offbeat take on the subject and impeccable understanding of the milieu. Adapted from Vasilis Vasilikos's novel 'Z' (which was even made into a French film by the same name in 1969), Shanghai is the story of a socialist professor and activist Ahmedi (Prosenjit Chatterjee) who is opposing an upcoming infrastructure project