Chak De! India (2007)

Original title

चकदे! इंडिया

Directed by

Shimit Amin

Genre

drama film, comedy film, comedy drama, teen film, sport film

Country

India

Runtime

2h 32m

Rated

6

Rating

7.2 of 10 from 382 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A former hockey player who was disgraced after a loss returns to the sport as coach of the women's national team. He must unite 16 rival players from different regions of India and lead them to win the World Cup.

inspirationalupliftingenergeticemotionalunderdog storyteam-spiritdramaticfeel-goodsports-focused

What happens

Chak De! India (transl. Let's go! India – transl. Go! India) is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language sports drama film directed by Shimit Amin, written by Jaideep Sahni and produced by Aditya Chopra under the banner of Yash Raj Films. The film stars Shah Rukh Khan as Kabir Khan, the former captain of the India men's national field hockey team. After a disastrous loss to Pakistan, Khan is ostracized from the sport owing to religious prejudice. 7 years later in an attempt to redeem himself, he becomes the coach of the India women's national field hockey team, with the goal of turning its 16 contentious players into an award-winning team. Sahni was inspired by the women's national field hockey team's win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games to develop Chak De! India's script after reading about it in a newspaper. The screenplay was fictional and the characters, while inspired by the real team and coaches, were invented by Sahni. Kabir Khan's struggles bore resemblance to those faced by real-life hockey player Mir Ranjan Negi, although Sahni was unaware of Negi's tribulations while writing the script. On the suggestion of Maharaj Krishan Kaushik, then coach of the women's hockey team, Sahni invited Negi to join the film's production team. A combination of professional players and actors were cast as the sixteen team members; workshops were conducted for training the actors in hockey and the players in acting. Kaushik and Negi would train Sahni, Khan and the other cast members over a period of six months. The sports scenes were choreographed by Rob Miller, and the soundtrack was composed by Salim–Sulaiman, with lyrics written by Sahni. Chak De! India was released worldwide on 10 August 2007, coinciding with the country's 60th Independence Day, and grossed ₹109 crore (US$26.36 million) on a ₹20 crore (US$4.84 million) budget, thus becoming the third-highest grossing Hindi film of 2007. It received widespread critical acclaim upon release, with praise for its direction, story, screenplay, dialogues, feminist themes, and performances of the cast, with high praise directed towards Khan's performance. A recipient of numerous accolades, Chak De! India won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment at the 55th National Film Awards. It received a leading 10 nominations at the 53rd Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Amin) and Best Supporting Actress (Shukla), and won a leading 5 awards, including Best Film (Critics) and Best Actor (Khan). The title track song "Chak De! India," now doubles as a sports anthem in India. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Goal (2007)
• Hattrick (2007)
• Soorma (2018)
• Say Salaam India (2007)
• Guru Shishyaru (2022)
• Speed Track (2007)
• Come, let's dance (2007)
• Karuppusamy Kuththagaithaarar (2007)