Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Darshan Kumaar, Sunil Thapa,
Zachary Coffin
Director: Omung Kumar Music: Rohit Kulkarni (Background), Shashi,
Shivam
Writer: Saiwyn Qadras (Story & Screenplay),
Ramendra Vashishth & Karan Singh Rathore (Dialogue)
Running Time: 122 minutes
The movie ‘Mary Kom’ is the biopic of Mangte
Chungneijang Mary Kom, aka Mary Kom, the five time World Amateur Boxing
champion from Manipur, India. Barring this, she is also the proud winner of
various Asian and other championships, as well as civilian accolades. The
prestigious ‘Padma Bhushan’ (2013) award by Govt. of India is the latest
feather in her cap.
The aforesaid gender, sport, as well as the state,
sadly don’t enjoy enough prominence in our country. So, its obvious that during
her struggling years, Mary Kom must have highly lacked the required infrastructure
and support (both moral and financial). Her success story must have been a far
cry from those sports personalities whose career were either carefully carved
since their early age, or whose normal passion of a particular support, which
they were never barred from playing, eventually turned into a career. It is for
these reasons, that this amazing sports woman deserves double round of
applause. Also, hats off to Omung Kumar for making his directorial debut with
such a different and deserving subject.
In the movie, as a child, Mary Kom (Priyanka Chopra)
lives with her parents and two kid siblings. She belongs to a very simple
Manipur style rural household, sans any luxury, but is blissfully unaware of
that. Rather, she chance finds a pair of boxing gloves in a destruction site
and keeps it as her prized possession, much to the disdain of her father, who
thinks that such a sport will spoil her face, thereby making her unfit for
marriage. Even during her adolescence, she is unaware of the emotion ‘fear’ and
sans any combat training, doesn’t think twice before entering into a combat
with a boy her age. Upon chance meeting with the Manipur state boxing coach
(Sunil Thapa), she persuades him to teach her boxing. Initially, the coach
ignores her. But finally he discovers one of his best pupils in her and sends
in her name for the inter state championship. Thereby, one victory leads to the
other, and Mary Kom embarks on her victorious journey, conquering Asian
championships as well as World championships in the process!
But this is easier said than done. In an almost non existing
infrastructure, she is required to work ridiculously hard on a body that can
throw as well as bear international quality punches. And she is required to
train for boxing, alongside being a regular daughter and/or wife which includes
the regular plethora of cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. She faces opposition
and irk of her father, for practicing a non woman type sport. At times, just
because the opposing contestant belongs to a much more prominent state, she faces
injustice in tournaments. And upon voicing protest, she is subjected to boycott,
bad will and humiliation! The three facts that keep her going are – guidance and
sheer expectation of her coach, unconditional love and support of her friend
turned husband Onler Kom (Darshan Kumaar), and her personal grit and
determination to simply win for India. When most career women, especially
sports women willingly/unwillingly put an end to their career after marriage
and motherhood, Mary Kom goes ahead and does the unthinkable. She gets married,
gives birth to twin baby boys, faces emotional turmoil, re-trains herself and wins
more championships! The biopic ends here. But the real Mary Kom, has since given
birth to another baby boy and harbors the dream of bringing more medals for
India!
Priyanka Chopra proved her acting excellence with ‘Barfi’.
But with ‘Mary Com’, she has entered a different league altogether. In fact her
passionate and unassuming style of acting will remind you of Leonardo DiCaprio!
For this movie, the actress has simply given in her body, mind and soul. She
plays the age range of a school girl to a mother with elan. She also lives
through the profiles of being a boxing student to a boxing champion with flying
colors. The actress recently suffered the demise of her dear father. It seems
that life without him, in itself was a strugglefor her, and that sense of
struggle and anguish was portrayed in her training and boxing scenes. You feel
like, she trains to contest, and she contests to win, and that is the only way
she can proceed with living! Very few actresses will go through such difficult
role that requires no make-up and athletic level of physical labor. Rest of the
cast is good as well.
The movie is well paced and it well depicts the tale
of a simple Manipur girl, who loves boxing, dreams of consistently winning for
India and finally gives shape to her dream. What is noteworthy here is that,
apart from simply winning, she doesn’t attach any other gain, clout or mammoth change
of lifestyle with her victories. She is well tuned in her family life, family chores
and surroundings. It is an inspirational movie with deserving subject, world
class acting by the protagonist, good screenplay and direction. Silent trusting
bond enjoyed between the protagonist and her coach is something to watch out
for. The movie also slightly touches the subject of poor nutrition, improper infrastructure
and above all not enough respect meated out to sports women/men during their sports
tours. With every sports based movie, hinting at this scenario, may be the
sports federation will soon do the needful, and thereby enable winning of more
medals by Indian sports personnels.
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