Z is an awesome novel and so is the movie adapted from it. Shanghai is almost Z. What a sad fortune that rot in system as shown in Z suits situation in our country and what an irony that people are talking more about the entertainment value in movie than the subject being visited by the director. Hypocrites, aren’t we? Maybe to some extent Dibakar is responsible for it. He kept story to-the-point, realistic and tried to avoid not making it entertaining from B-grade cinema perspective. Good for us.
Fifteen minutes into the movie, you know the context but you don’t feel it. Its Act 2 where you start feeling the gravity of subject. Conveniently, in the name of progress, we try to take away the basic human rights of poor people who are defense less. A teacher turned revolutionary who has little control over personal self is almost killed. While his wife who seems to be estranged, keeps her calm while he is in hospital. His student who is in love with him, is hell bent on proving that it was not accident, it’s a conspiracy. A disillusioned photographer with dubious credentials can be the game changer. Lastly, an IAS who is not sure what to choose – career or duty. When he try to choose one, other lures him.
Story wise the movie has a strong case. Dialogues were kept real. They would have sounded stupid otherwise. Characterization is really strong. Accent wise Tamil character played by Abhay Deol was a little off-track but I won’t consider that a valid case. I am a bong and speak Bengali with a heavy Hindi touch due to my upbringing in Allahabad. Pace of movie can be questioned but I am not sure that it could have better or worse. Cast wise: Farooq Sheikh and Prosenjit are just too good. Their persona on screen is remarkable. Abhay Deol and Kalki played their characters as if it’s a cake walk for them. On a second thought... it was. Emraan Hashmi... This guy has delivered goods in many of his previous movies. However the glam took away the credit. He has finally arrived with a bang.
Dibakar Banerjee has done a really good job. May be its not as good as his previous outing but still better than most of the releases we see. As a learner, I have a question: There was a subtle romantic track between Kalki and Emraan which was avoided. Why? Over to Dibakar.
Written By: Sujoy Ghosh
10 comments:
Good but not a masterpiece. Too predictable, with a bizzare ending. Excellent performance by Emraan Hashmi & Abhay Deol.
very well made movie, loved every second of it....but irony is people hype so much of jhoor movie Rowdy rathore
Still have to see the movie but read one of the earlier drafts ...... Have to say story wise there is no novelty ..... because we as a voting class have already lost our innocence so the whole political silencing of dissidents and whistle blower no longer comes as a shock for us ...may be in 50s it did not anymore ....
not that good movie... parrallel bollywood movies are not always good.. overall bad movie
I saw Z followed by Shanghai . Shanghai is a bad movie. We can see that even some of the camera angles are copy pasted from the Movie Z. It is not enough just to adapt novel because it goes close to our country politics. The last scene of the movie Shanghai is very funny ...where movie says that shalini's book is banned in India. It is actually funny As compare to original content of book or novel.
Movies Are of to kinds ..Good movie or bad movie ...Its a perfect example of Bad movie.I loved Dibakar's other movies. Shanghai Is bad.
i think that every movie with real life characters can't be given a 5 star rating.It also requires a script which creates the impact deep down on the viewer which this movie fails to do for me at least.But still you cannot rob it of the 3.5 stars it deserves.
no one but the audience should be blammed... the film is brilliant.... not for everyone to understand.. many of whom have commented here... and films like rowdy rathore should be banned..its films like rowdy and dabang and others which are vulgar and not something like delhi belly which was genuinely funny.
Excellent movie...it's nice to see Dibakar Banerjee picking up such a subject after oye lucky, lucky oye!! Emraan Hashmi's role was hyped by the media...he barely had 20mins role in the movie..hez played better roles...i wait for such releases in between the usual masala, senseless comedies
Nopes, the movie is not short but far from being a masterpiece. Just the topicality of the subject chosen and good performances don't a film make. There's little momentum in the plot, even though there may be some great sequences here and there. But the point is, does it all fall together to form a single unified whole that majority of people can watch without nodding off. Nah! 'Shanghai' didn't work for me and I know a lot of people are praising it because they don't want to look like lesser intellectuals.
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