Chakde! India

Just finished my 5th viewing (aside from all the "clips" of my favorite scenes) and the film still thrills me. How amazing that a work of fiction captures so well the challenges and potential for this amazing country--the most populous democracy in the world with perhaps as many as 700 languages. Khan, always a fan favorite, expresses his profound faith without pushing it upon the viewers. The team is fantastic. This is a movie with a lot of "heart". "You can't just see it once".

EX Indian Hockey Captain, Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) returns years later to Coach an all girls hockey team, a team consisting of the "best players" picked from various states in India. Can they play together as a team for India or will they play with the attitude that each thinks themselves the best? Through insults and disagreements from the girls, then his decision to resign, Kabir Khan uses situations and wisdom in making difficult decisions. He is tough with the girls because he knows how it feels to lose a World Championship game having come so close to winning, and the degradation and burden of that loss. No one lets you forget! So he constantly advocates playing as a team because it is the only way to play for India and win the World Championship. He succeeds in getting them to the World Championship games after the decision to play against a men's hockey team became the deciding factor. The men, a professional team, were impressed with their determination to make it through and that helped turn the decision in the girls favour. Having come this far, will Kabir Khan succeed in coaching his team to play for India and therefore win the World Championship games for their country, especially after the initial game of 0 goals for India, and 7 goals for Australia? A more serious role for Shah Rukh Khan! A great movie to have!

Of course art is subjective, so in my opinion, "Chak De!" is the best sports movie ever made.This film has more substance; it is more realistic, more complex, and it contains fewer clichés than the best sports movies that Hollywood (now called Hollyweird) has ever put out."Chak De!" also has tremendous re-watch value.

This Bollywood epic weighs in at the length of "Gone With the Wind" but the story of the "Mighty Ducks." Years after facing humiliating defeat on the field, former hockey star Kabir Khan (Shahrukh Khan) returns to the game as coach of the Indian women's national hockey team, striving to shape a ragtag bunch of female athletes into a playing force to be reckoned with. His 16 recruits show up from every corner of India, a testiment to the ethnic diversity of that massive land. For the most part, they represent types rather than characters -- the spoiled rich girl, the tomboy, the shy one, the angry one etc etc. Khan's job is to meld them into a team, for as he observes, it's teamwork, not strength that wins world championships.What elevates this a little over the usual biopic is the Indian setting. Khan is a Muslim -- he's denounced as a traitor to India after missing a vital shot in a match against Pakistan. But his heart still beats true and strong for the beloved homeland. There is an interesting feminist twist -- the women have to take on the Indian male team to persuade the sexists who run the hockey association to spend the money on them to go to the world championship. In one amusing scene, the women beat up a bunch of boorish men who are harrassing them at a fast-food restaurant.Just about every scene of this movie is predictable as is the dialogue and the characters. But it still made for a fairly harmless and painless evening's entertainment.

I don't know how many people have noticed this, but Preity's sexist and obnoxious boyfriend is practically a double of India's current young vice-captain and star, Mahendra Singh Dhoni-- put their portraits together and you can hardly tell the difference, except that Dhoni's hair is more tousled, his pic was taken in the open air. Which is too bad, because Dhoni is one of the nicest guys around-- always encouraging his players, leading by example, and modest almost to a fault in one-on-one interviews. I am proud to call him a fellow Delhi-wallah, too. If more had been shown of the boyfriend's cricketing talents, we might have thought better of him-- but naah, let him fester in his sexist juices-- Preity's heave-ho of her boyfriend at the end of the movie was well and truly deserved. Chak de, Dhoni.

This is a really good movie. We did not recognize SRK in this film at first. We watched it on Netflix, but decided to buy it here for a good price. There is a bit of violence in one scene. There is a scene where an engaged couple wake up in the same bed. No bad language that we could hear. No real religious elements, either. It is one of those Sports movies where the rag-tag team has to learn to work together to succeed.

This is a fantastic movie, with all actors doing a great job. I forgot they were even acting, which is a good sign they're doing a great job! I liked it more than alot of cliched sports movies where there's an underdog team. This doesn't just have to do with the making of an Indian hockey team, but the empowerment of women and focusing more on women in sports. It is a really feel-great movie, and of course, it's an added bonus that Shah Rukh Khan stars in it!Just on a side note: I received my blu ray of this movie in excellent condition, all region, with English subtitles and at a great price through one of the vendors here, Dancing Dolphin LLC, in case anyone wants to make sure they get a good version.