Among hundreds of war movies produced in seven decades, since Haqeequat to Border, since LOC Kargil to Uri, a 22-minute sequence of the next movie 120 Bahadur has left people in forgetfulness of all they had watched earlier. Those who have seen the rough version of the final battle that was leaked are echoing the same words: this is not merely the best war scene in Indian cinema but it is the first time India ever produced something that can be compared with Saving Private Ryan and Dunkirk. And the heart of that lunacy is Farhan Akhtar, who is covered with blood and mud and screaming orders with Major Shaitan Singh, PVC.
For advertisement on our platform, do call at +91 6377460764 or email us at [email protected].
And why then are every one of us terming this war-scene of Farhan Akhtar as the best ever made in India?
First, the scale is insane. It occurred on 18 November 1962 at an altitude of 18000 feet in Ladakh with 120 men of the Charlie Company, 13 Kumaon, until the last bullet in a battle of 3000 Chinese against them.
Director Razneesh Ghai (Razy) did not make an attempt to conceal the impossibility of situation, he smeared it on your face. No slow-motion walks of the hero, no background music, no rain of bullets suddenly falling out of the sky and passing through the hero. Instead it is men with black fingers struggling to loosen the bolt of a maneuvered rifle when frozen, as the Chinese soldiers stamp, running down the mountain like a human wave. The camera never lies. Once a soldier dies, he just falls in the snow and is frozen within few seconds. No melodramatic final lines, no camera close-up of sobbing faces. Just silence and death.
The second factor that makes this sequence break your heart and blow your mind at the same time is the transformation that Farhan Akhtar undergoes. The Rock On, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara singer is a different man. He lost 12 kilos, drilled a whole eight months in the minus-20-degree conditions, he knew how to use a 1950s.303 rifle in the blindfold and he grew a thick moustache that makes him look like he was born in the 1930s. You do not see Farhan the actor, when he shouts, in that broken, breathless voice, fix bayonets! when you know Major Shaitan Singh is fully aware that every single man of the men he gave orders to will be dead in the next thirty minutes yet is determined, and will not withdraw a single step.
The third is technical genius that had never been witnessed in Indian war movies. The whole sequence was shot without the use of green screen with real locations by its cinematographer Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti at 17,000 feet. The blood is actual animal blood combined with gelatin (due to fake blood being immediately frozen at such a temperature). The sound effects by the Oscar-winning Resul Pookutty make you feel every bullet. As a Chinese PPSh-41 opens fire, it will take it four complete seconds to echo over the mountains into you – just as it would be in real life. Background music is not used with tricks. You can only hear wind, gunshots, men in agony, and the voice of Farhan that goes through all this as a knife.
The fourth reason is the most significant one and is truth. All the information is borrowed out of the real army report and eyewitness testimonies. The manner in which the soldiers would use frozen dead bodies to shield themselves since they did not have cover. The manner in which the remaining 12 men made a suicidal charge with bayonets when they had no more bullets. The manner in which Major Shaitan Singh continued to order his men about, half his stomach ridden open, pushing them all back in place until at last he sat against a rock and died staring at the enemy. Farhan does that last scene in one big shot, four minutes long, in which he crawls through the snow leaving a trail of blood behind, lights a cigarette with trembling fingers, smiles at his radio operator who is already deceased, and says, Tell Delhi, we held the post.
Upon the conclusion of the sequence, there is a twelve seconds hold on the black screen. No credits, no music, nothing. According to viewers who attended the test screening, the majority of them just sat in the seats sobbing. It is the strength of what Farhan Akhtar and the 120 Bahadur team have made.
It has taken 62 years to be on screen in India where the real story of Rezang La is depicted. By the time 120 Bahadur comes out on 21 November 2025 we will all have a clue why those 120 men are regarded as the greatest heroes the Indian Army has ever made- and why Farhan Akhtar has just given the biggest war performance the Indian film industry has ever witnessed.
