Mini Review: Mary Kom Exposes what an insincere, unprepared and careless actor Priyanka Chopra is

Right since the hammy first look of Priyanka as Mary Kom came out , I was wary of the film. But since the topic interested me i was hoping to be surprised.

That Mary Kom was made just because Bhaag Milkha Bhaag became hit is well known. But whats not known is how careless Priyanka Chopra and the makers were while making a biopic on a boxing legend. Mary Kom is just another tragedy of poor film making in Bollywood just like BMB was. BMB had Farhan Akhtar looking like Rocky Balboa and playing Milkha. Here Priyanka plays Mary Kom but looks more like Fashion/Don 2 look. Farhan akhtar did not have to build six packs and biceps for playing Milkha but he did. Here Priyanka Chopra needed to build biceps and six pack but she has the body of a size zero model and not a boxer. Her shoulders are timid, her stance is poor and her boxing technique is laughable. Her shoulders keep moving like a wannabe amateur every time she throws a punch.

But Priyanka is not the only bad thing about the film. The director has written a poor screenplay and the fight scenes are worse than Bobby Deol’s Apne. You don’t feel anything when Priyanka wins. In fact none of the fights are choreographed beyond 1-2 mins and they are extremely poor. When Priyanka is cast as Mary Kom, you know the film doesn’t care about authenticity. So why not at least cast a good villain? Why not cast someone like Ronda Rousey? May be the makers knew Priyanka will never look convincing beating that kind of opponent in the end. Because she is so insincere and unprepared in this film. Just like BMB there is silly dramatization about her child’s surgery coinciding with her final match and how it traumatizes her to under perform.

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28 Comments
  1. sputnik 10 years ago

    Well it looked like another BMB from the trailer and it seems from yours and Sanket’s review that it is the case.

    • Baba 10 years ago

      yes it is. though BMB was more interesting than this. this is just bland and shallow

  2. Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

    Hmm, as I was expecting. The boxing shots in trailers looked so bland.

    • Baba 10 years ago

      the boxing scenes were horrible. imagine a film on boxer with horrible boxing scenes. kya hoga aisi film ka. priyanka just joins a random gym and gets selected for inter state championship just like that! i would have been happy if this had even one match choreographed properly. the training scene before the climax is ok. priyanka used cables for doing the human flag. her acting and accent were not impressive. i think she should have gone for prosthetics and tried to look like a manipuri. she is not a good enough actor to compensate these things by acting

  3. dhary 10 years ago

    hi baba get real if u cant appreciate great work of someone dont criticize as priyanka nailed her performance to perfection she is so awesome n brilliant in her role of mary kom even mary cried n salute her for portraying her character so well so wake up n get real n remember one mor

    Comment partially edited for content

    • Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

      Pls explain the meaning of “nailing” the performance.

      Priyanka is a fake actor who has never got any role in her life right. Forget Mary Kom. She could not even have a real smile and has kept on copying Madhuri for her lifetime.

      What can we expect from such a plastic actress?

    • Baba 10 years ago

      mary kom will obviously salute her and love the film. the biopic is made on her consent! just like milkha loved bmb and imagined how foreign girls used to drool over his six pack abs! biopic should never be made on the consent of the person on whom its made.

  4. yakuza 10 years ago

    Agree with your views, first half was yawn inducing, second half was little better but still not enough to be ranked among good sport movies. Agree with your take on Priyanka as well, she remained naïve throughout movie .. on first day of training to last shot of winning Gold.

    But saying all that .. I disagree with your(u and Sputnik) views on BMB. BMB had everything going for it to be ranked among of best sport based biopic or even sport movie. BMB had enough detailing on Milkha singh, his life, his struggle, his affairs .. it was a story told marvellously on screen. Mary Kom has nothing .. it told what we already know from news papers. Nothing new or personal.

    • Baba 10 years ago

      bmb was a sham. its a completely fake film.there is over dramatization and fabrication of emotions to the extent being ridiculous and having sour grapes . so milkha didnt win bcos he was haunted by his childhood trauma! its manipulative nonsensical tragedy. the real race videoes are there on youtube. milkha was beaten fair and square and he was not suffering from any trauma.

      • Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

        I could not even had courage to watch BMB, as saw Farhan biceps and abs in trailers …looked so fake for a runner!

        • Baba 10 years ago

          the biceps and abs might have been ok if he was playing usain bolt on screen, but definitely not milkha 🙂

      • yakuza 10 years ago

        zabardasti ke critic ban rahe ho tum log .. better to see movie as a movie, not any reality show. And even from YouTube video, how you know what was going within Milkha Singh ??

        My earlier comment on BMB :

        “How this Biopic is close to reality is another debate, but as a movie I don’t see any major flaw. Movie engaged me to extent that even length appears short as I wanted to see more and more. Farhan and ROM together are real HERO of movie. ROM as a storyteller very effectively portrayed the otherwise very simple story, ditto for Farhan .. this was once in a lifetime opportunity for Farhan and he left no stone un turn. Overall .. Applause worthy and well paid effort.”

        • yakuza 10 years ago

          I was seeing marriage video of my cousin, it was 6 years back .. coincidentally same day was one my major setback in life, I was completely broken. I attended marriage, but was completely absent from my mind and soul. For 4-5 months later on I was in trauma.

          Now recently when I was watching marriage video, leave anyone else, even I was not able to figure out from my body language if something was hugely wrong with me. I was looking very normal and smiling. Though only i know how i was going through one of most bad phase of life.

          So just stop making assumptions and giving dumb judgement .. yahan log aankho dekhe mein bhi dhokha kha jate hain .. tum youtube pe video dekh ke poori judgement de rahe ho. Stop this nonsense.

        • Baba 10 years ago

          the posters of BMB say “you know him as the flying sikh. now you will see his real story”. the moment you call it a biopic and still say you liked it, the joke is on you.now you may be dumb enough to imagine and belive that foreign girls used to drool over milkhas rocky balboa-ish six packs but you cant expect this from everyone. some of us do carry our brains.

          its not about the youtube. its about having a regressive cowardly mindset. milkha loses to a foreigner bcos he was going through a trauma otherwise how could he ever lose! this is typical mentality with some of us that we cannot digest our heroes losing in a contest and we try to attach excuses with it. so how do you know the guy who beat milkha did not have his share of traumas? what you loved in bmb is precisely the regressive cowardly mentality in many of us.

          • yakuza 10 years ago

            the posters of BMB say “you know him as the flying sikh. now you will see his real story”.

            Was story fake ?? Can you prove ?? Or you mean inclusion of background music and songs made it fake ?? Can you give me example of one authentic commercial biopic ?

            From a film perspective, Audience expectations is 60-70% real happenings/incidents, overall story/journey should be true and real .. that’s all one expects from a movie based on some one’s life. BMB exactly delivered this .. don’t think any fool went to movie to see narrative without songs, background music and some entertaining fillers (And we never know if those fillers are also true .. like that Ghee scene in BMB).

            You are extremely immature to say that Biopic should be made without consent of person .. Can you tell me how anyone get to know about insight of his life and the inner journey unless he himself reveals ?? Yes there are great chances that he/she might fake .. but we don’t have choice other than believing it. Milkha singh said that he lost one race because he was not in mental piece, now this might be true/false .. but he is not making excuse of every race he lost .. for one race he gave his reasoning, valid or not valid .. that’s a different thing, no one can authenticate. And above all, how BMB as a biopic is bad/fake ? ROM told the story and build the narrative based on Milkha Singh inputs .. as a movie/biopic it perfectly delivers .. otherwise i can say even movie “Gandhi” had more fake scenes .. and i have sources to prove my claim. But you don’t have …

          • Baba 10 years ago

            how do you know 65-70 percent of bmb is real? so you belive milkha had an affair with a gori and girls used to drool over his six packs? have you even seen the real milkha pics?

            yes one should never involve the person in the making of the film on whom the film is made because that guy will always project himself as a hero.one should do own research. its the same when a film is adapted from a biography.like the wolf of wall street.

          • yakuza 10 years ago

            And how do u know 60-70 percent is not real ?

            What is unbelievable in Milkha having affair with white girl ? You mean Milkha is ugly so this is impossible that any girl fall for him ? Baba ji kaun si duniya mein jee rahe ho ?? Aur kitne saal ke ho ?? Who told you that girls fall only for good looks ? look is just one attribute of personality .. and there are hundreds other attributes for which a girl can fall .. I don’t see any reason why should i not believe this episode of Milkha.

            And can you tell me which research can get the insight of someone’s personal life ? one can only get to know about Such small/personal incidents of others life only if he reveals himself (or any other person involved). There is no other alternative .. else biography will be nothing but just cuttings of news articles.

            And yes .. please name me one authentic commercial biopic in your opinion, produced in bollywood.

          • sputnik 10 years ago

            This is from Milkha Singh’s interview that I had posted.

            Dilip Bobb: There is one scene in the movie in which Milkha Singh kisses an Australian athlete. Did that actually happen?

            It’s true that people do stuff in their youth. Some do it openly, some secretly. But everyone does it. The message I wanted to send out to sportsmen through this movie was that a woman can put you on a pedestal and bring you down as well. The film shows her to be the first woman he meets and they (the filmmakers) said that it’s essential to show these things for the movie to work with the audience.”

            Link

            So its obvious that Milkha’s affair with some Australian girl and that kiss and all was created by ROM and Farhan Akhtar for making the movie a commercial hit.

            Can you elaborate on ‘“Gandhi” had more fake scenes’?

            If Gandhi was directed by Rakesh Mehra it would have had him dancing in the bar with some Gori in South Africa and some silly romance with her. Gandhi would have had 6 pack abs and women would be drooling over him. Also there would be some childhood trauma sequences which would serve as an excuse every time Gandhi called off his agitation. There would be scenes of Gandhi showing his greatness at drinking milk. Thank God Gandhi wasn’t directed by Rakesh.

            But it would have done 100 Cr at the Indian boxoffice and won Filmfare awards and I guess that’s enough.

            P.S. Please don’t use the symbol for percent in your comments specially at the beginning of the comment. If you do your comment will not show up in recent comments.

          • yakuza 10 years ago

            Sputnik .. don’t know how you are reading that statement of Milkha Singh .. did he denied anywhere about his romance with Ausie girl ? Question is about kissing/intimate scene, not affair .. and Milkha not even denied. In fact he admitted that such things happen to everyone in youth. I don’t see he denying anything .. in-fact he is justifying such extremely personal moments to reveal on screen. You think Milkha would have tolerated such incidents on screen if not happened in real ? This was grey side of his journey .. nothing to be proud of.

            above all, how this biopic(or any other biopic) is close to reality .. no one can authenticate, not even director. Screenplay is written based on inputs from person upon whom life story that biopic is.Director job is to translate the screenplay into visual medium. Audience job is to watch and give verdict on how well it is made .. but no one in this assembly line can authenticate except the person himself whose life story it is.

          • Baba 10 years ago

            thanks for that link sputnik. these things were discussed in depth in that post.

            ” they (the filmmakers) said that it’s essential to show these things for the movie to work with the audience.” is there any ambiguity left after this statement unless one is dimwitted?

            yakuza , i suggest you go through that review thread of spuntik and educate yourself a bit on the real milkha. i get that you are an audience of the the era of 80s fantasy masalafied cinema and i sympathise with you! i mean there is nothing terribly wrong in loving BMB. just dont call it a biopic and evrything is fine. 😉

          • yakuza 10 years ago

            @Baba .. if you want to prove something from misreading of links, that’s your wish .. else i have given my views on that link above.

            yes thanks Sputnik, that link again solidified the fact that biopic is based on Milkha’s inputs on his life insight ..

          • Baba 10 years ago

            dont think you read sputniks review thread and educate yourself a bit on milkha.ignorance is bliss

          • sputnik 10 years ago

            No that link did not prove that Milkha kissed or had an affair with some Australian woman. He did not say that “Yes it happened”. Instead he gave some usual advice about everyone doing that openly/secretly and women putting a man on a pedestal and all that.

            This is what he said

            “The film shows her to be the first woman he meets and they (the filmmakers) said that it’s essential to show these things for the movie to work with the audience.””

            Its clear from this sentence that the filmmmakers added that whole Australian kiss/affair bit to make the movie work with the audience.

          • Baba 10 years ago

            “women putting a man on a pedestal and all that.”

            some horrible stuff about women by milkha in that interview. if his childhood trauma excuse wasnt enuff, its also the “women” who brought him down! its pathetic that some of us indian men dont have bare minimum mardaangi to accept defeat gracefully and blame ourselves for failure for a change. i mean would milkha be a lesser legend if he came fourth in the olympic and not the first? why to hurl excuses for not coming first?

          • sputnik 10 years ago

            @yakuza,

            There is an autobiography of Milkha Singh – The Race of My Life which has a foreword by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.

            Now according to this article

            “Soon after watching Farhan Akhtar’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, as I was going through Milkha Singh’s autobiography, The Race of My Life, I wondered with a tinge of sadness: “Why can’t we make a good biopic? Why do we need to put in ‘superheroic’ elements to showcase the life of a legend?” Can’t he remain great despite his frailties and weaknesses?”

            No doubt, Singh had set the tracks on fire in an era when the nation had hardly anything to celebrate, except perhaps the hyperbolic Nehruvian dreams. But to claim that he broke the world record, as the film does, was ludicrous. The autobiography helps put the fact right. The official report of the 17th Olympics, held in Rome in 1960, clearly credits the standing 400m world record to American sprinter Lou Jones. The previous record of 45.9 seconds was made by Jamaica’s George Rhoden and Herb McKenley at 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Jones ran the distance in 45.2 seconds at Los Angeles in 1956. As per Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Singh made a new world record of 45.8 seconds just before the 1960 Olympics. Call it lack of research or a deliberate attempt to distort facts, but when Singh ran the distance in ‘record’ time, the world record mark had actually changed. The book safely — and rightly — credits him with bettering the previous Olympic record.

            Unlike the cinematic overindulgence of linking the mistake on Singh’s part to take a look at his opponents in the dying moments of the race at the 1960 Olympics, which cost him a podium place, with his Partition scars, The Race of My Life reveals what actually happened on that fateful afternoon of September 6 in Rome. “I started off by being ahead of the others, and at 250m-mark, I was running so perilously fast that I decided to slow down in case I collapsed — a fatal decision I regret even to this day. As I completed 300m, the three competitors right behind me came abreast and began to move ahead, and even though I increased my speed, trying to catch up with (Malcolm) Spence, who I had beaten in Cardiff (Sixth British Empire and Commonwealth Games), or the two before him, I could not wipe out the deficit of those six or seven yards. And thus, as fate would have it, my error of judgement at that crucial point in the race, had dragged me to the fourth position and destroyed all my chances of winning that elusive Olympic gold.”

            It is after the Rome race that Singh of the movie goes into a reclusive mode and turns down the invitation from Pakistan — only to be persuaded by Jawaharlal Nehru. He then goes to Lahore, wins the race, gets the title of the ‘Flying Singh’ and ends the movie on a high note.

            The autobiography has a different version — that Lahore happened well before Rome. It was in the early part of 1960 that Pakistan invited the Indian athletic team for the Indo-Pak Sports Meet. After having stunned the celebrated Pakistani runner Abdul Khaliq at the Tokyo Asian Games, 1958, Pakistan was building up the event as a revenge series. The Indian once again proved better to make Gen Ayub Khan give Singh the ‘Flying Sikh’ title and tell the ladies to lift “their burqas from their faces so that they could have a closer look at me”.

            From surviving the horrors of Partition, making his way to India, trying to earn his daily bread through all sorts of means, legal or illegal, landing in jail, joining the Army to, finally, becoming the celebrated athlete, Singh’s life story is a perfect filmi material. Why would then anyone want to add more masala to it?

            Forget Singh singing “nanha munna rahi hoon” in the film to woo his love interest before he joined the Army in 1952 (the fact is the song belongs to a movie that was released much later in 1962), other depictions in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag contradicts the picture The Race of My Life so earnestly makes. Life at his sister Isher Kaur’s place was definitely a bigger challenge for the real Milkha, surviving as he did with a meal a day. In this backdrop, watching Singh drink “two litres of ghee”, as he does in the film, offends our sensibilities. In fact, getting into the Army with the help of his brother was more than an attempt to save himself from poor diet (he would get dry rotis and onions at Isher’s place) and miserable work conditions (at a rubber factory) rather than a pledge to his sweetheart!

            Unlike the filmi avatar, The Race of My Life introduces us to the real Milkha Singh, who inspires us on every page of the book. Why then we need to further romanticise his life? Read this book to know the real Singh, and believe me your admiration for him will only grow. For respect, you don’t need to gulp two litres of ghee, create a world record which wasn’t there, and turn the chronology of events upside down.”

            Link

          • Baba 10 years ago

            hopefully yakuza will not accuse milkha singh of “misreading” the events in his life in the autobiography.

          • yakuza 10 years ago

            Don’t agree with any analysis/misreading above .. will put my response when have some free time.

  5. aryan 10 years ago

    I supposed to see the movie in theater today. After seeing Baba reviews my plan has changed I will see on system later thank for the review baba.

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