Black Friday and Paanch | Rise of AK | Under Lens

Paanch was remade last year as Shaitaan. Shaitaan was the most successful production of Anurag Kashyap, but Paanch didn’t even release. This shows the kind of shift that has come about in Hindi Movie scene. Thats good for Anurag Kashyap.

Paanch is where Anurag Kashyap’s legend began. As Paanch was banned from releasing, Anurag went to newspapers and news channels. People started noticing him. Suddenly he became poster boy for everything that was wrong with Indian censorboard. he became rallying point. In my opnion, Ban in release of Paanch did him more good than its release would have. Paanch could just have been an unnoticed Indie made by a writer who was on team of Ram Gopal Verma.

Then came Black Friday, and I thought,’Let’s see, what this guy is all about’. I grabbed the DVD, and about 2 hours later I was blown away. Level of detail in characters, historical accuracy, Motivation of characters, direction, performances everything was spot on. I can safely say that, personally for me none of Anurag’s film yet have beaten Black Friday. Even Gangs of Wasseypur. Disagree? Tell us in the comments

Written By Ali Naqvi

Under Lens: Anurag “Banned” Kashyap

Anurag Kashyap is more known for the movies that were not allowed than the movies that were allowed to be showcased on silver screen. Apart from a confused No Smoking, irresistible Dev D and egoist Gulaal, the director has two brilliant movies to his credit- both banned temporarily or permanent.


His debut Paanch starring KK and Tejaswini Kolhapuri was inspired from a real life incident. It won accolades all around the world and Kashyap was instantly in limelight well before a release that never happened. Story of a struggling band and intense violence, the movie was banned by the Censor Board and till date it has not been released. A member found it unhealthy to leave the movie for public viewing.

But another movie- Black Friday, a docudrama based on Mumbai Bomb Blasts saw the silver screen after a series of cases. The devil was not the happening on screen. It was the content that was controversial to the core. TADA court was presiding over the case and some people including the accused believed that the movie can negatively influence the court. Prejudice was the fear. It was banned and then after suitable amends, released.

Though both movies were banned, they were available on DVDs at Palika… does censorship work?

For The Reel; Written By: Sujoy Ghosh