Kesari (2019 film)


Kesari is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language historical action-war film written and directed by Anurag Singh. It was jointly produced by Karan Johar, Aruna Bhatia, Hiroo Yash Johar, Apoorva Mehta and Sunir Khetarpal under the banners of Dharma Productions, Cape of Good Films, Azure Entertainment and Zee Studios. The film stars Akshay Kumar with Parineeti Chopra, Mir Sarwar, Vansh Bhardwaj, Jaspreet Singh, Vivek Saini,Vikram Kochhar and Rakesh Sharma in supporting roles. It follows the events leading to the Battle of Saragarhi, a battle between 21 soldiers of the 36th Sikhs of the British Indian Army and 10,000 Afridi and Orakzai Pashtun tribesmen in 1897.
Initially planned as a production collaboration between Salman Khan and Johar with Kumar starring in the lead role, Kesari was announced in October 2017, with Kumar and Johar reprising their responsibilities; Khan later quit the project. Chopra was cast as the wife of Kumar's character. Principal photography for the film began in January 2018 and concluded in December. The soundtrack was composed by Tanishk Bagchi, Arko Pravo Mukherjee, Chirantan Bhatt, Jasbir Jassi, Gurmoh and Jasleen Royal with lyrics written by Kumaar, Manoj Muntashir, Kunwar Juneja and Bagchi. Produced on a budget of, the film was distributed internationally by Zee Studios.
The film was released in India during the Holi festival, on 21 March 2019. It received positive reviews from critics; it had a good start at the box office, while the opening day morning collection was affected by Holi-related celebrations. The film grossed over 100 crore worldwide in its opening weekend. It grossed over 207.09 crore worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of 2019.

Plot

Havaldar Ishar Singh is a part of the Sikh Regiment of British Indian Army posted at Gulistan fort along the Indian Afghan border. A British officer is jealous of him because of his superior fighting skills and thinks little of the native Indians, deeming them to be cowards. While just returning from a border patrol, the troop sees a group of Afghan tribesmen led by a Mullah named Saidullah trying to kill a married Afghan woman who does not acknowledge her forced marriage. Ishar Singh intervenes, fights off the tribesmen and rescues the woman by killing her husband, thereby disobeying his immediate superior.
Once the troop reaches the base fort, the British officer reports Ishar Singh's disobedience to his commanding officer who sits at the nearby Lockhart fort. The Afghans then attack the Gulistan fort, but are stopped by Ishar Singh who fights valiantly, killing many Afghans. He is punished and transferred to Saragarhi Fort that sits between Gulistan and Lockhart fort and enables communication between them. When Ishar Singh's transfer orders are issued, he travels to Saragarhi fort and upon arriving there finds the troop in a mess. He enforces discipline in the troop by punishing all to live without food for an entire week. The troop initially is furious but later respects Ishar Singh on learning that he too was living without food. Meanwhile, Saidullah, forms an alliance between the Afghan tribes and motivates them to mount an attack on the Indian territories as a unified force. Ishar Singh and Lal Singh go to a nearby village in search of their informant who hadn't reported to them for over three days.
The British Commanding Officer Col. John Haughton from Lockhart fort sees the Afghan Forces marching towards Sargarhi and alerts Ishar. Ishar and his battalion find some ten thousand tribesmen encircling the fort. The Mullah, with the entire Afghan army at his back, kills the woman Ishar Singh had rescued earlier in front of the Saragarhi Fort. Despite the commanding officer's orders to abandon the fort and flee, Ishar Singh and his men decide to fight till their death. Ishar Singh deploys his force in position. Khuda Daad volunteers to fight but Ishar Singh asks him to instead provide water to the soldiers, to the injured soldiers. The Afghans initiate the battle, and Bhagwan Singh is the first to be killed. Gurmukh Singh being an inexperienced soldier, is unable to fight, due to which Ishar Singh asks him to keep the CO updated regarding the battle, and decides to prolong the battle so as to prevent the Afghans from advancing to the Gulistan and Lockhart forts. As the battle prolongs, Lal Singh alone fights the Afghans outside the fort and dies while asking one of the sepoys to close the gate to the fort. Meanwhile, the Afghans manage to destroy the back wall of the fort using explosives.
Ishar Singh remembers his wife Jeevani one last time after removing the stripes from his uniform and starts fighting the Afghans with a red-hot sword, before he gets fatally stabbed. Saidullah kills Khuda Daad before himself being stabbed to death by Ishar while trying to remove his turban. Ishar's bravery impresses an Afghan chieftain who orders his men not to touch any Sikh's turban. One of the Afghan chieftains named Gul Badshah, orders the signalling post to be lit up so Gurmukh Singh's painful screams can be heard as a consolation. As the Afghans set the post on fire, Gurmukh Singh emerges with his body on fire. He chants "Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akaal" thrice, grabs Gul Badshah and triggers the grenades attached to his body, resulting in a huge explosion. The shout echoes and reaches both the nearby forts. The Sikh soldiers present there also start chanting in the name of their Guru. The surviving Afghans loot the fort and eventually set it on fire. The British Parliament honours the martyrs with a two-minute silence and posthumously awards them the Indian Order of Merit, at that time the highest gallantry award an Indian soldier could receive, with the Victoria Cross being the corresponding one.

Cast

Development

In 2017, Salman Khan and Karan Johar announced that they would be producing a film together based on the Battle of Saragarhi starring Akshay Kumar in the lead role. Media reports later speculated Khan left the project in favour of a similarly themed film starring Ajay Devgn, and in October that year, Johar and Kumar announced a statement about their collaboration on the film; that Khan had quit the film, and that it would be titled Kesari. Parineeti Chopra was confirmed for a minor role as the deceased wife of Kumar's character.

Principal photography

Principal photography began on 5 January 2018 and finished on 31 December 2018. The film was produced on a budget of.

Soundtrack

The music of the film is composed by Tanishk Bagchi, Arko Pravo Mukherjee, Chirantan Bhatt, Jasbir Jassi, Gurmoh and Jasleen Royal with lyrics written by Kumaar, Manoj Muntashir, Kunwar Juneja and Tanishk Bagchi.

Marketing and release

Kumar released Kesaris first look poster on 12 September 2018, through Twitter. Another poster was released on India's Republic Day, 26 January 2019. The film's theatrical poster was released on 11 February 2019.
The following day, Dharma Productions released three videos titled "Glimpses of Kesari" on their YouTube channel, detailing the film's production. A second theatrical release poster for Kesari was released on 20 February 2019. The official trailer of the film was released on Dharma Productions' YouTube channel the next day.
The first song of the film "Sanu Kehndi" was released on 27 February 2019,the second one "Teri Mitti" was released on 15 March 2019 and the full album was released on 18 March 2019.
Kesari was released worldwide during the Indian Holi festival, on 21 March 2019. It had a release on 4200 screens worldwide, 3600 screens of which were in India and the rest overseas.

Home video

Kesari was made available as VOD on Prime Video in May 2019.

Reception

Critical response

Rachit Gupta of The Times of India gave Kesari four stars out of five, praising its "technical brilliance, intricate writing and thundering performances". Taran Adarsh gave it four stars and felt it "chronicles a significant chapter from history brilliantly... Nationalism, patriotism, heroism, scale and soul - Kesari has it all". Writing for Times Now, Gaurang Chauhan rated the film three and a half stars out of five and opined, "Kesari is not the best patriotic film or action film to come out of Bollywood, but it surely is worth the time and money". Bollywood Hungama rated it four stars out of five, remarking, "On the whole, Kesari is a brave and inspirational tale of courage, with patriotism and the dramatic battle sequences being the USP of the film". Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in writes, "Sluggishly paced until the interval and springing to life only in fits and starts in the second half, Kesari is a poor attempt to revisit a chapter in Indian military history that earned the admiration even of British colonisers."

Box office

Kesari opened with collection of on its first day. The collection of extended weekend of the film is, which was the highest opening weekend collection of 2019 for Bollywood films released till May. Its domestic gross was 182.30 crore and overseas gross 24.79 crore. It has grossed 207.09 crore worldwide. The film grossed over 100 crore worldwide in its opening weekend. It became the fastest 100 crore earning film in domestic net in 2019 for Bollywood films released till May. It eventually grossed over

Awards and nominations