"Kesari" the movie (2019)

[timmy]

Has anyone seen this movie "Kesari"?



I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on it. Is it worth watching?

[chicky]

Greetings Timmy,
I have seen it, very absorbing and motivating. This historic Battle of Saragarhi is a benchmark of bravery against tremendous odds. The movie deals with it excellently and uses a story to connect the dots , brilliant acting and direction. I loved it, hope you will too.

Warm regards,

Chicky

[mundaire]

Like all movies, it does take some dramatic liberties and has some obvious factual errors - for e.g. IIRC the ammunition shown is for 303 rifles, while the soldiers are shown using the Martini Henry rifles, in other scenes some Afghans are shown with SMLEs, which were not in use then, in yet another scene Havilder Isher Singh is shown using a British cavalry sabre, not the standard issue infantry sword, etc.

That said, certainly worth a watch though.

[timmy]

Thank you, brothers, for the information. I am trying to find a copy of "Kesari" now.

I'm not overly concerned about them using SMLEs in the movie, as one of my favorites, "Zulu," also uses some Lee Enfields (although I'm not sure which models) in the final, climactic scene. They must not have had enough available for all the actors in that scene.

I will be interested in seeing what Martini Henry models are used in "Kesari." I would not be surprised to find that Mark IV rifles were actually used, as the date would be right -- the UK would have been issuing Lee Enfields to the troops by then, which were used in the Boer War. I haven't studied the Boer War enough to know whether everyone had Lee Enfields at the time or not -- I'll be doing this.

I found out about "Kesari" from looking at Martini Henry information, and when I read about it, I wondered whether this was a movie I must see -- and so it is!

Thanks for you help.

[mundaire]

Thank you, brothers, for the information. I am trying to find a copy of "Kesari" now.

I'm not overly concerned about them using SMLEs in the movie, as one of my favorites, "Zulu," also uses some Lee Enfields (although I'm not sure which models) in the final, climactic scene. They must not have had enough available for all the actors in that scene.

I will be interested in seeing what Martini Henry models are used in "Kesari." I would not be surprised to find that Mark IV rifles were actually used, as the date would be right -- the UK would have been issuing Lee Enfields to the troops by then, which were used in the Boer War. I haven't studied the Boer War enough to know whether everyone had Lee Enfields at the time or not -- I'll be doing this.

I found out about "Kesari" from looking at Martini Henry information, and when I read about it, I wondered whether this was a movie I must see -- and so it is!

Thanks for you help.

Timmy,

Due to our laws, the guns seen in the movie are mostly replicas, interspersed with some old "army mess" pieces for the main actors. Kesari was streamed here on Amazon Prime, I assume it should/ would be available on Amazon Prime in USA as well, unless they have restricted it per geography (which they do with irritating frequency).

As to issue of rifles, lets not forget, colonial troops were usually kept at least a generation behind the white troops in terms of armaments, at least up to WW 1 (and in many cases, even after). This was an inevitable fallout of the 1857 mutiny, which also led to a massive reorganization of the British Indian Army.

Even after the learnings of WW 1, most of the Indian cavalry was not mechanised/ armoured and continued with their horses... this was no accident.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[timmy]

Abhijeet -- i'm not about to criticize a good movie on the basis of the props that were used. For instance, in the movie The Battle of the River Platte The ship used to represent Graf Spee is a US Navy heavy cruiser. People griped about this online. I was happy that they got such a ship to stand in, and thought that those whiners should make their own movie and build a real Graf Spee for it from their own pockets for it. It was a good movie, and well done.

Sometime around 1900, the UK sent Martini Henrys and other rifles to Nepal -- I've got one. I had always wanted one since watching Zulu as a kid with my Dad and finally got one. So when i saw this movie Kaseri, I did wonder just what rifles were used. The Wikipedia (yes, I know) wasn't very clear, and didn't sound especially knowledgeable about this.

Canada didn't even get the Marini Henry in appreciable numbers -- they kept their Sniders like the USA kept the Trapdoor Springfields (which were used in the Spanish American War in large numbers). I wonder if this is partly why Canada developed and used the Ross rifle in WW1, at first.

Running an empire means doing things that one would rather not talk about, like not sending wheat to Bengal. Also during WW2, I understand that the UK "borrowed" £1.5 billion from Egypt and £4 billion from India. (fron Piers Brendan's The Decline and Fall of the British Empire). I wonder if that money was ever repaid? I know FDR got language of some kind put into Lend Lease, and that most of the $3 Billion the USA loaned to Great Britain after WW2 went for paying off deposits of colonies. I'm recalling the Soviets sending Mosin Nagants and SKSs to Warsaw Pact nations and China when they got the AKs.

It is a lot of work, taking what belongs to someone else on a large scale.

[Kittu]

"Rifles have Phillips head screws instead of flat head screws. These are falling block rifles with short straight-walled ammo.
Akshay Kumar uses a telescope as rifle scope tied to rifle with a sling to shoot down an Afghan sniper who is using a muzzle loader gun/rifle.
Earlier he shoots an Afghan fighter who is out of range with iron sights and same rifle.

funny thing is movie doesn't tell what Kesari means. Everyone thinks it's saffron color cloth on sword.
But In truth When Rajput soldiers/kings were surrounded in forts by enemy army and there was no hope of winning, they committed SAKA. Women committed jauhar and men committed kesari. Rajput soldiers went out to fight their enemies for last time and they died fighting enemy to the last man.
So actually kesari means Last stand and this is what movie all about last stand of 21 soldiers.

We normally know only about 2 such SAKA once when Allaudin khilji attacked Chittor and second when Akbar attacked Chittor. we know these because most historians have written about these fights but there were many more such fights and saka.
Movie makers knew about kesri tradition, that's why they chose this name but there is no mention of it in movie.

Maybe they were scared of protests.

Rajput had this tradition and Sikhs didn't, and if you are putting Rajput tradition name in movie which is based on Sikh soldiers it may cause trouble
but if you name it kesri and dont explains it most people will think its saffron color sacred to everyone.

I remember a discussion on our site about a article which was published 2,3 months after movie was released, will post link once i find it.
Thanks.