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India's most expensive film - a lavish retelling of the Hindu epic Ramayana, made in two parts for a reported $500m - has opened in cinemas worldwide, sparking enormous expectations and mixed reviews.
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film → publish → expectations
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, Ramayana: Rise of a Legend is the first of two planned films, a sprawling production that brings together some of India's biggest stars, Hollywood visual-effects expertise and two Oscar-winning composers in an attempt to take one of the country's most revered stories to a global audience.
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that → direct → audience
One of Hinduism's foundational epics, the Ramayana has travelled across centuries and continents, finding expression in poetry, temple sculpture, shadow puppetry, folk theatre and stories passed down through generations.
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Ramayana → travel → generations
It has outlasted kingdoms and empires, inspired religious devotion and political movements, and found new life, again and again, on TV and in cinema.
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It → outlast → cinema
Tiwari's version returns to the familiar story of love, duty, exile and war, set in a world of gods and demons, celestial weapons and mighty kingdoms.
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version → return → gods
Ranbir Kapoor plays Lord Ram, the virtuous prince of Ayodhya.
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Kapoor → play → Ayodhya
Banished from his kingdom for 14 years, he retreats to the forest with his wife Sita (played by Sai Pallavi), who is kidnapped by Ravana, the ten-headed king of Lanka.
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who → banish → Lanka
Played by Yash, one of southern India's biggest stars, Ravana is a powerful warrior whose pride leads him into an epic battle with Ram (which will be depicted in part 2, set to release next year).
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which → play → part
The film's producer, Namit Malhotra, heads visual-effects company DNEG, which has worked on Hollywood blockbusters including Dune and Interstellar.
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which → head → Dune
The music is a collaboration between AR Rahman, the Oscar-winning Indian composer of Slumdog Millionaire, and Hans Zimmer, whose scores for Gladiator, The Dark Knight and Dune have helped define the sound of modern Hollywood.
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scores → win → Hollywood
The film opened days ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights which celebrates Ram's return to Ayodhya after his exile.
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which → open → exile
Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV channel gave it, external three out of five stars, saying its visual spectacle often overshadowed the story.
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spectacle → give → story
Its enormous scale, he wrote, "remains, for the most part, the only thing that stands out", while the acting remains "wildly inconsistent".
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acting → write → part
Rishabh Suri of the Hindustan Times newspaper was more enthusiastic, awarding it four stars.
"I am happy to report, all that money shows on screen," he wrote, praising the performances and visual effects, though he found the first half sluggish and the music underwhelming.
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music → award → performances
Shubhra Gupta, external of The Indian Express, who gave the film three stars, confessed to initial misgivings about its extravagant scale but found herself gradually won over, calling it the "perfect epic".
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herself → give → it
There was "enough sorcery and thrills and adventure" to sustain the spectacle, she wrote, and the filmmakers had managed to tell a sprawling story without being swallowed by it.
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filmmakers → be → it
Internationally, too, the film drew contrasting reactions.
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film → draw → reactions
Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw called it a "thoroughly engaging, rousing and spectacular Indian epic melodrama".
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Bradshaw → write → it
He found echoes of Shakespeare in the royal intrigue that sends Rama into exile, and of Homer in his quest to rescue Sita.
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that → find → Sita
Its sweeping landscapes and fantastical imagery reminded him of The Lord of the Rings and The Lion King.
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landscapes → remind → Rings
"It's a rather amazing adventure," he wrote, external, giving it four stars.
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he → write → stars
Siddhant Adlakha of IGN scored the film four out of 10, describing its action as "clunky" and its computer-generated imagery as an "eye-sore".
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Adlakha → score → sore
Giovanni Lago of Next Best Picture, who gave it, external five out of 10, praised Yash's magnetic Ravana and the score by Rahman and Zimmer.
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who → give → Rahman
But he felt the film's vast narrative might have been better served by a Game of Thrones-style series.
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narrative → feel → series
The use of AI to adjust actors' lip movements for the English-language version also drew criticism.
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use → adjust → criticism
While Tiwari said it was intended to make the film more accessible to international audiences, Adlakha likened the result to "exaggerated mouth movements superimposed on still images for comedy sketches".
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Adlakha → say → sketches
In India, the film has invited comparisons with earlier adaptations, particularly Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, which captivated the country nearly four decades ago with simple sets and special effects that now seem quaint.
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that → invite → sets
When the series first aired in 1987, Sunday mornings across India took on an almost devotional stillness.
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mornings → air → stillness
Streets emptied, shops lowered their shutters and neighbours crowded around TV sets.
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neighbours → empty → sets
Some viewers bathed, lit incense and garlanded their screens before the broadcast, preparing for the show much as they might for worship.
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they → bath → worship
Arvind Rajagopal, a media scholar at New York University, told the BBC in 2019 that trains and buses would stop and passengers disembark to watch the show on roadside TVs.
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passengers → tell → TVs
Broadcast on the state-run Doordarshan network, some of the most popular parts of the 78-episode series drew an estimated 80-100 million viewers, astonishing numbers at a time when owning a TV was a luxury in India.
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owning → Broadcast → India
The actors, too, became objects of reverence.
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actors → become → reverence
Arun Govil, who played Ram, has recalled people weeping at the sight of him and touching his feet.
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people → play → feet
Now, in a casting choice brimming with nostalgia, Govil returns in Tiwari's film as Dasharatha, Ram's father.
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Govil → brim → Dasharatha
Other adaptations found their own ways to reimagine the epic.
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adaptations → find → epic
The 1992 Indo-Japanese animated film Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama brought the tale to life through richly detailed, hand-drawn animation.
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Tiwari's Ramayana arrives with technological resources its predecessors could barely have imagined - but also with the expectations of generations who have grown up with the story and its characters.
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It also comes at a politically charged moment in India, where Ram has become a powerful symbol of Hindu identity - over the past decade-and-a-half, even popular analyses or retellings of the epic have landed in controversy.
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analyses → come → controversy
The 2023 film Adipurush, another big-budget retelling of Ramayana, sparked backlash on several fronts.
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film → spark → fronts
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
