Mary Kom

In our country where women gets lesser share of lime light, the story of a boxer like Mary Kom who had to fight with life to achieve her goal deserves to be made on the celluloid. They haven’t really claimed it as a biopic of the legendry boxer, it is a dramatized story of the Indian boxing star and as a film it is a pleasing one.

It is the story of this manipuri girl who had a lot of aggression and wanted to learn boxing. The angry young woman got the opportunity to train under a reputed coach and with her hard work she achieved great heights. Film basically focuses on Mary’s struggle to reach here, after facing all the odds and also how she manages to keep the winning momentum going after a small pause in her career when only a few showed faith in her.

As I said it is the story of an actual person and there is a limit for cinematic criticism in terms of life events. For all of us who have seen films like Chak De India, Iqbal and Bhaah Milkha Bhaag, the events they have shown in the film would give you a glimpse of scenes from these films. The childhood, the training, personal troubles happening parallel to career, training sessions in the Himalayas etc are something familiar to us through the above mentioned films and here we have the same things shown to us in the backdrop of boxing. Of course the unique part of the script was the fact that they have shown the mother aspect of Mary Kom.

Priyanka Chopra has done a great effort to portray Mary Kom. The physical preparations and also that furious character of the boxer were there in her Mary Kom and hats off for these efforts. Nepali actor Sunil Thapa was really good as Mary’s coach. Darshan Kumaar was okay as Onler Kom.

Well the making is kind of over dramatized. The other films I mentioned above had biographical reference and they had this captivating writing which really controls your heart beat. Where Mary Kom (film) tumbles is in its writing. In these days where the realistic approach to cinema is more appreciated, they could have gone for that aspect. Director has tried to make the visuals realistic but as I said there was something cheesy which somewhat kept the audience silent. Cinematography was nice. Edits were okay and the art was a bit sloppy. Too much of lame brand promotions were there and it is not Chennai Express where you won’t mind such things.

Overall Mary Kom is not a bad film. It is a passable biopic that follows the typical ingredients for making biographical movies. The rating for the movie is 3/5. Watch it for Mary and Priyanka.