Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Danny Denzongpa, Ajit Kumar, Hrishitaa Bhatt, Rahul Dev, Suraj Balaje, Subhashini, Gerson da Cunha Costume Designer: Anu Vardhan Manish Malhotra (Kareena Kapoor) Naresh Rohira (Shah Rukh Khan) Action: Sham Kaushal Art Director: Sabu Cyril Editor: Sreekar Prasad Dialogues: Abbas Tyrewala Background Music: Sandeep Chowta Lyrics (San Sa Nana): Anand Bakshi Lyrics: Gulzar Music: Anu Malik Screenplay: Saket Chaudhary, Santosh Sivan Assoc. Executive Producer: Mark Burton Executive Producer: Sanjiv Chawla Cinematography & Direction: Santosh Sivan

In April 2001, when Lagaan was hailed as one of the greatest Indian films ever made, one knew that it would be a daunting act to follow as far as period films go. Yet Asoka will release while Lagaan is still playing in theaters across the country. And Shah Rukh Khan believes that Asoka does have what it takes. So while Lagaan had a flawless Aamir Khan, Asoka has a Shah Rukh Khan and Santosh Sivan combination. While Lagaan's subject was its risk factor, Asoka is generally perceived as a history lesson and a biopic. At the end of it though, Lagaan worked. Asoka…?

Indeed, Asoka is being closely watched. 2001 has seen some brilliant Indian films released. The question is whether Asoka will be one remembered in this landmark year or will it be forgotten like the hundreds of others that Bollywood is responsible for.

Upperstall has been querying about the defensiveness that the cast and crew have been sporting about the film. In various interviews, Khan and the crew have been selling Asoka as a regular Bollywood film, complete with its shenanigans. There are action sequences, there are five regular songs, there is love, there is shmove, just about everything the 'aam janta' would want. Hell, Shah Rukh mentions that at Toronto, someone asked him before the screening of the film if it was anything like Lagaan and he told him "Sure, there is a football match at the end of it." There is more than a hint of desperation here and we asked Shah Rukh why.

There is a problem with the pre-release he admits. It is generally being perceived more as a docudrama full of history lessons and drab non-filmi masala. This, he insists is not true. Sivan has exercised his cinematic license to a great extent; mixing history and actual facts with storytelling. And now its become somewhat of a personal mission of the cast and crew to make sure that everyone and anyone buys a ticket to watch the film, to give it a chance. Because they sincerely believe that this is all it will take to prove that the film is worth it. And this is important. It is important because Shah Rukh cannot afford another flop. In between his several spurts of his trademark arrogance he confesses that his production company cannot possibly afford, literally, to lose this time. Sure, the man who he promised a football match at the climax of Asoka, didn't get one. But he definitely admitted to a great cinematic experience.

Asoka deals very little with history. All the painstaking research yielded were different interpretations of the same event. Sure there was some Kaurwaki, some Devi, some Kalinga War. But Kaurwaki may have been a fisherwoman or a princess, Devi might have been Asoka's most memorable one-night stand and according to some, the Kalinga War might not have happened at all! Sivan has chosen the lines that intersect fact, myth and Bollywood and from the one million possible permutations he has created a three hour story to visually tell the masses of a country who barely knows why Asoka was known as Asoka the Great. And Shah Rukh insists that Asoka is a film that ends where history begins.

Technically is where Asoka looks very promising. The most interesting aspect, Khan informs us, is that besides the titles, there are no special effects in the film. No Computer Graphics, no wires, no razzmatazz, no nothing. What you see is what you get. And the several people who have commented on the "brilliant f/x" in the war sequences have been flabbergasted when informed they were all real. The shooting style is also very "raw" and impure. No unnecessary reverse angles, no typical Bollywood framing, and a very fluid camera overall. Khan says that a lot of times he was against some of Sivan's ideas of how a shot should be taken. Like how they should use a trolley here and a wider lens there. But all Sivan would say is that there were no trolleys during Asoka's time and that the audience is really more interested in seeing a performance rather than a backdrop.

Finally Shah Rukh Khan vehemently believes that the Indian film industry needs to move on and that his gamble with Asoka is a step in that direction. He says that good (this might be subjective, but we trust his taste) filmmakers, established ones especially, should go ahead and make decent cinema instead of cribbing about the trash that they are consistently treated to. One might argue that there is little support for such filmmakers and there are several makers languishing about with excellent scripts (the Upperstall team is a goldmine by itself!) but with no financial backing simply because producers are averse to taking chances with the fickle Indian audience. But it is exactly this fickle-mindedness that will help the industry to take its risks and grow.

So if Asoka is really what it is being made out to be, and if the audience takes to it like they did with Lagaan, we are in the midst of a minor cinematic revolution to say the least.

Asoka releases on 26th October, 2001.

Facts on Asoka