Chandu Champion — A Shocking True Story of a Forgotten Sports Legend of India
Such movies that are both inspiring and informative must be encouraged
Why and how we watched the movie
My mother had come to stay with my wife and me last month on a Saturday. I had booked the movie tickets for Chandu Champion for the Sunday morning show. Since there was hardly any buzz or excitement about this movie on social media, I was confident of getting the tickets. Moreover, by Saturday afternoon, all my favorite reviewers on YouTube and audiences on Twitter had given overwhelmingly positive reviews for this movie. And my favorite go-to website for movie ratings, BookMyShow, showed a rating of 9.3/10 for this movie.
My wife and I had watched the trailer a week before that and it felt like a regular sports biopic designed to arouse emotions and inspire the audience. Moreover, Kartik Aaryan’s brand image of a rom-com movie star didn’t make us feel confident about the movie. Even though the trailer showed some good snippets from within the movie, it didn’t excite us. But the reviews changed my opinion and we decided to go for it. Another reason to go for the movie was that my wife only gets Sundays off at work, and we don’t have a TV at home (my mother would have gotten bored otherwise and gotten busy with cleaning and re-arranging the house which I don’t like).
The cinema hall temperature was lower than desirable which took some time to adjust. My mother wore her jacket and shared a shawl with my wife while I appeased my male ego by not wearing a jacket or draping a shawl. I did protect my chest by folding my hands over it. My wife had to sit with folded legs on the seat because she had worn footwear, not shoes with socks like my mother and I. With these adjustments, we watched the movie.
All 3 of us liked the movie because we went in with zero expectations. The cold soon stopped bothering us because the movie had many emotional heartwarming scenes. While I ruminated about the movie after we left the cinema hall, I couldn’t find a single moment in the movie that I hadn’t seen before. The movie was too familiar, the ending was known and the highs and lows in the journey of the hero was a typical one. Yet the storytelling connected at some level with the audience and it garnered praise from most critics.
The sad situation of good sports biopics
Kabir Khan is a good storyteller and can connect with the audience at an emotional level, as we’ve seen in Bajrangi Bhaijaan. I am glad he made a sports biopic on an unknown sports legend rather than on an event that most of us know in detail (the movie 83). In the movie reactions videos on YouTube, everybody confessed that they had heard of the olympian for the first time in the movie. I witnessed the same reactions from people who watched the movie Maidaan, released earlier this year, about a relatively unknown football coach of India, S. A. Rahim, who made Indians a world champion in football. Sadly, Maidaan didn’t even collect Rs. 100 crores while movies like Pathaan earned over Rs. 1000 crores. Even though Chandu Champion has had a better box office journey, it may still end up as a flop. Two inspiring movies about two sports legends of our country, even with good storytelling, rave reviews, and good word-of-mouth publicity couldn’t earn enough to encourage other filmmakers to make such movies in the future. While these movies have restored my faith in Bollywood making good sports biopics, the box office numbers indicate that we are not a sports-loving nation, and that must change.
Best aspects: Performances and cinematography
Vijay Raaz is an underappreciated treasure of Bollywood. While Kartik Aaryan gave his career-best performance, it was Vijay Raaz who became the one who moved you to tears, be it while encouraging Murlikant to not give up on his dream of winning gold for India in the Olympics despite his physical limitations, or silently applauding (with tear-filled eyes) for Murlikant when he wins the coveted Olympics gold.
Visual shots of training and sports events made me feel like I was part of his journey. While we have seen wrestling and boxing matches and training scenes times in Bollywood movies, it was the swimming one that impressed me the most. The battle scene in Kashmir when Murlikant, his friend, his former coach, and their unit face an aerial attack from the Pakistani air force, is so well executed that I could feel the threat and tension in that scene.
Favorite Scene
Undisputedly the one in which Tiger Ali takes Murlikant to watch a wrestling match of Dara Singh, and then motivates him to not give up on his dream of winning gold for India by trying for the Paralympics.
Fun fact
Sushant Singh Rajput had plans to bring the life journey of Murlikant Petkar to the big screen. In an interview, the veteran olympian talked about meeting the actor in 2019. But the actor’s unfortunate demise in 2020 meant that Kartik Aaryan got this incredible opportunity to play this role.
Conclusion
Overall, the story of the hero Murlikant Petkar sounds fictitious yet it is an incredible true story. A wonderful inspiring family entertainer that will stay with you for long and perhaps encourage you to not give up on your dreams. Kartik Aaryan’s best work to date, in case you’re his fan. Still running in some cinema halls, in case you’re interested in watching it on the big screen, or else wait for its OTT release that should happen soon.
