Director Shimit Amin, PG, 160 mins, Subtitles

Stars: Shah Rukh Khan, Vidya Malvade

The ‘King Khan’ is back on the big screen and this time he has sixteen women under his wings.

Shah Rukh Khan is Kabir, a former disgraced captain of the Indian hockey team, who decides to coach India’s national female hockey team. Will the obdurate professional be able to instil into his diverse bunch of feisty females the merits of team spirit, take them to the World Cup finals in Australia and regain public adoration in the process?

This rare sporting film is a timely attempt to revive interest in India’s national sport – Indians invented the game – which lost its popularity to cricket and football in India. Whether or not this happens remains to be seen, but as a film, it’s a successful attempt to push the boundaries of the Bollywood envelope.

At one level, this is not groundbreaking. The theme of underdogs emerging triumphant, achieving self respect and fanfare through success is familiar. This has been previously explored in the Rocky series, Cool Runnings, and Bollywood’s own Oscar nominated Lagaan, and the recent Iqbal.

Yet first time director Shimit Amin has fashioned a gripping film: we keep rooting for our girls even though it is fairly obvious what the final result will be. This is achieved via a script which eliminates most of the usual trappings of the formula, and focuses on the game. Romance is absent, parents are sidelined and no one breaks out into song and dance, Lagaan-style whilst training.

Khan’s omnipresence dominates. He is impressive, adding a sixth facial expression to his trademark five: a steely grimace. The real heroes of the film are the sixteen laddettes making their film debut. Some of their characters are sidelined and lapse into Indian regional stereotype: the pushy Punjabi, a Chandigarh beauty, junglees from Jharkhand. However, the ones we encounter are credible, modern Indian women.

Amidst the light proceedings, are jibes at the Indian government’s inertia to fund sport adequately, and at sexist male dominated sporting bodies’ refusal to treat female players seriously as “Indian women are born to cook and clean”. It is also refreshing to see a Muslim Indian as the main protagonist in a Bollywood film which does not deal with Kashmiri terrorism or communal marriage.

Although predictable and with a preachy patriotic ‘United India’ message, this is a heartfelt, heady, homage to hockey.

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