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Product Detail |
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Audio Format: DD 2.0 Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 Languages: Hindi Subtitles: English Region Code: 1 Year Made: 2001 Running Time: 87
The Hindi-language film "The Warrior" was chosen by the British Academy of Film and Television to represent the UK in the "Best Foreign Language Film" category at the 2003 Oscars.
 The AMPAA took the highly unusual step of rejecting the movie because although the film had a British-born director (of Indian ancestry) and was co-produced by three British companies, the film did not qualify as British since "Hindi was not a language indigenous to the U.K." The British Academy was forced to submit its second choice, the Welsh-language, "Eldra". In an ironic twist, "The Warrior" went on to win "Best British Film" at the British Academy Awards the following year, although it lost "Best Non-English Film" to a film from Spain.
Asif Kapadia's The Warrior is a work of rare and consuming integrity. This brilliant new British director made his debut at 29, in 2001, when The Warrior was released widely in Europe. Only in 2005 has it finally been released in the United States.
The film is placed entirely - and spectacularly shot, with the painterly prowess of a Zhang Yimou - in India of long ago. It is a work onto itself, without regard to convention or audience comfort. Kapadia does not bother to introduce his subject or to invite viewers into the world he depicts; he thrusts them into it with the first frame and he doesn't stop until about an hour into the film when there is a brief episode not involving gripping, threatening, breathtaking conflict.
 The new star in the title role, Irfan Khan, is also making his debut, but he has a face, a presence that you feel you have always known. He plays the top warrior, the enforcer and executioner for a inhumanly cruel warlord, a man slaughtering men, women and children of the villages which don't pay their taxes in full. When he suddenly stops killing and seeks a different life, the hunter becomes the hunted. From this point on, when Hollywood would follow one of two or three possible scenarios, Kapadia continues to enthrall the viewer, the story unfolding in its own unique, riveting way, never becoming slack, lazy, or predictable. Intensity continues unabated, suffused with meaning and complexity.
From India's Rajasthani Desert to the Himalayan region of Himachal Pradesh, there are spectacular backdrops, but Roman Osin's camera is consistently on the faces - ancient, stoic faces (most of the cast never acted before) showing the barest signs of emotion - magnified in context and in the close-ups. At the most horrendous moment of The Warrior, the face on which the reaction might be expected is suddenly hidden by the camera shifting up so that all that is seen is a riot of colorful turbans. The desire to see that disappearing face is strong, but, at the same time, there is relief at not witnessing it.
Special Features:
- Deleted Scenes With Optional Commentary
- The Making Of The Warrior
- Feature Commentary
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