Bollywood is finally getting sports right. Chandu Champion to Soorma, Mary Kom

Chandu Champion does justice to the comeback tale, just like Shimit Amin did with Chak De! India.

Illustration by Shruti Naithani | ThePrint

In each of Chandu Champion‘s boxing scenes, Kartik Aaryan who plays Murlikant Petkar looks like a pro medium weight boxer instead of an actor performing some punches. One of the reasons for each match looking like it’s straight out of a live telecast is the fact that Aaryan was sparring with professionals for nearly a year. Each punch that lands on Petkar feels real is because they are. And he was up again the next day, to shoot all over again.

The comeback theme in sports movies have been explored enough by Bollywood directors—from Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra to Ali Abbas Zafar. But the likes of Chandu Champion are pushing new boundaries. And it isn’t limited to finding that new larger-than-life character the audience will cry over or have goosebumps for. The new age sports biopics in Bollywood are finally catching up. It’s all better camera work and deeper research. And it extends from shooting action sequences as realistically as possible to tracing the full arc of the protagonist — their highs as well as the lows. It’s no more just the script, even the star chosen to play the character needs to look the part.

That six pack, that visible rib cage, their swing of the bat and even how fast they punch – if playing a Mary Kom – adds to the final experience on screen. And that experience is only becoming richer. Bollywood has come a long way from the days of poor and patchy VFX in MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Azhar to Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal.

Comeback trope done differently

The story of an underdog athlete from India who gets a chance at the world stage has been told a hundred times before on the big screen. And the endings are almost similar: national anthem, national flag, teary-eyes, and the fact that they have finally done it. Kabir Khan’s Chandu Champion too has all this, but what sets it apart is the man whose extraordinary story the director has chosen to bring to the big screen. He is an underdog, who makes a comeback. But he is not the average underdog. A paraplegic former boxing champion making a comeback in swimming is not a comeback story that has been told before. Chandu Champion is formulaic, but in a way that ticks all the right boxes, and rouses its audience.

Shaad Ali’s Soorma (2018) also looked at the comeback of an athlete, former hockey captain Sandeep Singh who was accidentally shot during a train journey a month before the hockey world cup in 2007. In a cricket crazy country, the masses don’t remember for long when a hockey player gets injured. So when the director decides to portray such a story on screen, they have the burden of engaging the audiences with deeper research that focuses on small details and realistic shots.

“Most films do not really focus on the rehab part after a player’s injury, instead focusing on the team or individual player’s struggles. If they start showing what happens after an injury, it can also raise awareness on sports injuries,” said Dr Ajaz Ahmed, a physiotherapist specialising in sports injuries and recovery.

Chandu Champion devotes enough time to show Petkar’s rehab journey as he slowly learns how to swim, before eventually taking it up as the sport he would go on to win his gold medal in. The film takes its time to show Petkar’s mental turmoil as the able-bodied sportsperson who could not even move without help.

Omung Kumar’s Mary Kom (2014) also relies on the comeback trope. In Mary Kom, the highly decorated boxer makes a comeback after her pregnancy. In the world of sports, women making a comeback after motherhood is rare.

And Chandu Champion devotes enough time to show Petkar’s rehab journey as he slowly learns how to swim, before eventually taking it up as the sport he would go on to win his gold medal in. The film takes its time to show Petkar’s mental turmoil as the able-bodied sportsperson who could not even move without help. It also underlines how the rehab and recovery or even comeback of an athlete is a long arduous task, which needs the support of a village, be it in terms of a coach, sports injury specialists, family or peer support and governmental support.

In Mary Kom, a supportive husband who opts to take care of the couple’s twins as the boxer makes her near-mythic comeback. The sequence of her training for comeback, depicted in the song Salaam India might focus on the star of the film Priyanka Chopra, but also indicates the level of training and preparation required to achieve peak fitness.

Even in Soorma, the latter half of the movie showcases how the hockey player was inspired by his brother to take a step towards playing again despite the life-changing accident. “Even a backache can cause immense difficulty in playing a sport. I cannot even imagine the amount of pain Sandeep must have endured to fight back and play again,” said Ali.

From surgery to long periods of rehab in Holland, Sadeep’s journey was no less than a fairytale. But the athlete himself underlined the importance of a world-class rehabilitation centre for athletes in India. “The government is supporting the injured athletes for their recovery in every aspect but I feel if we have a world-class rehab facility in India, then there is no need to go abroad,” he said in an interview.

Most films do not really focus on the rehab part after a player’s injury, instead focusing on the team or individual player’s struggles. If they start showing what happens after an injury, it can also raise awareness on sports injuries
— Dr Ajaz Ahmed, physiotherapist specialising in sports injuries and recovery

Real means researched

In one of the early scenes in Soorma, a young Sandeep Singh, who has already decided to stop playing hockey because of a strict coach Kartar Singh (Danish Husain) is seen using drag flick to scare away birds at his uncle’s wheat farm. That establishes his innate talent despite no training. The fields make reappearances, once when an older Bikramjeet (Angad Bedi) realises Sandeep is a better player than him, and even during his rehabilitation later. Shaad Ali also establishes Sandeep’s tenacity in a match against Pakistan, where he is hit on the nose with a stick by an opposition player. But he comes back in the second half of the game, with a better game.

Shaad Ali had extensive conversations with Sandeep Singh, and his brother Bikramjeet before setting out on a travel map that started from Singh’s hometown in Shahabad, followed by Delhi, and to every other place he ever played. It was only after the travels that he sat down to write the screenplay with Suyash Trivedi. All of the grounds they ever played in are depicted in the film, through its match sequences.

The lead actors, from Diljit Dosanjh, Angad Bedi and Taapsee Pannu, played and trained with Sandeep and Bikramjeet for the role.

Both Jaideep Sahni, the screenwriter of Chak De! India (2007) and Kabir Khan had found their respective stories in newspaper articles. In the case of Sahni, it was just a small piece that mentioned the women’s team feat at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

For Mary Kom, it wasn’t just Priyanka Chopra who learnt boxing to make her portrayal look authentic. Director Omung Kumar and some of his crew also took up the sport to understand how to shoot some of the scenes. Christy Halbert, USA’s assistant coach at the London Olympics was brought in to choreograph the fights.

In the case of Chandu Champion, it had taken 12 drafts to finally zero in on how Murlikant Petkar’s life will look like on the big screen. In an Instagram post, Petkar shared how he was indebted to Kabir Khan for bringing his story to life, for his country to watch.

But even before the drafts, Khan, who spent two months trying to locate Petkar, spent time with him. The director went on to visit the Army, meeting the Olympic committee and researching other elements of the player’s life.

“Kartik was put in the ring with international boxers, and he had to hold his own against these guys. So he pushed himself further,” said Khan.

Chandu Champion adds to that rare list of movies that are based on characters not known popularly. And that forces the makers for heavy lifting.

Camera, choreography, editing

When Chak De! India released in 2007, it became the benchmark of sorts, establishing that sports movies could be shot well in India too. In a way, Shimit Amin’s film raised the bar high for sports movies in Bollywood. The penalty shootout scene may well be the climax of the script but the camera angle and a realistic treatment—minus all the unnecessary drama associated with most Bollywood films—made it strike a chord with the audiences.

The common link between both Chak De! India and Chandu Champion is cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee, who has worked his magic into the frames of both sports movies.

Over a decade-and-a-half after the film was released, Bollywood’s sports films have made massive improvements in key departments of filmmaking. The camerawork, choreography and editing have become better, with palpable tension of any sport translating through the screen for its audience.

“We hadn’t shot a sports film before. I decided I must be up close and personal with the actors, because you cannot have it in televised sports. We had to move a lot of the field, and the stadiums do not allow tracks. So we used golf carts to shoot,” said Chatterjee in a interview.

Chatterjee also ran after the players, with a wheelbarrow-like device with camera kept in, to shoot the movement of the players.

In Chandu Champion, while shots focus on Aaryan’s physique they do not linger on beads of sweat falling in slow motion. It is this absence of such scenes that brings sharpness to the schemes of training and boxing, and elevates it from sheer melodrama.

We hadn’t shot a sports film before. I decided I must be up close and
personal with the actors, because you cannot have it in televised sports. We had to move a lot of the field, and the stadiums do not allow tracks. So we
used golf carts to shoot

— cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee,

Even in a village wrestling scene in the film, when Petkar defeats the son of the village strongman, the camera doesn’t dawdle on him, but moves alternately between spectators and the match, refusing to make Petkar the hero before he has won the match. This is a refreshing change from Salman Khan-starrer Sultan (2016), where the camerawork barely focuses on the match, and keeps the star rather than the character in focus.

The only slow shots are when Petkar defeats a favourite from Turkey. And even as his opponent is knocked out with Petkar’s right-hand jab, his left punch or cross remains in motion. The focus is on how the sport is actually played as opposed to being choreographed only for camera.

In the swimming scenes, the interspersing of Petkar’s memories, with every dive he takes and resurfaces, revealing the many setbacks in his eventful life, keeps the nostalgia associated with the biopic intact, while also focusing on the fact that it is a sports movie.

This is a technique earlier used in Mary Kom, where the final sequence intersperses Mary’s comeback fight after motherhood in the World Championship final in China with scenes of her baby’s heart surgery in India. Every time Mary takes a hit from her opponent, the baby’s heart monitor graph also nearly flattens. When Mary wins the match, so does her baby, as doctors announce that she is out of danger. Mary sees her husband Onler (Darshan Kumar) holding her two babies, encouraging her to win when she is initially being almost beaten to a pulp by her opponent.

In Soorma, the hockey sequences, shot mostly in Belgrade in Serbia, were choreographed by Sandeep Singh and his brother Bikramjit. “I used to play hockey too, and having both Sandeep and Bikramjit helped us shoot the hockey sequences in a particular way, especially to show Sandeep’s famous drag flick. We did not use any special camera technique,” said Shaad Ali.

Robert Miller, who is a sports action director, and has earlier looked after the cricketing moments in Kabir Khan’s 83, and now Chandu Champion, keeps the scenes powerful, by not dwelling on the heroism of the hero.

Miller’s work in the Ajay Devgn-starrer Maidaan (2024), a film about India’s win at the Asian Games in 1962, too has commendable choreography and camera work, elevating the film’s football matches. Russian cinematographer Andrey Valantsov’s camera breathlessly follows the men and the matches, making the audience almost smell the sweat and blood of those who brought glory to the nation. It is also Shahnawaz Mosani’s sharp editing that brings clarity to Syed Abdul Rahim’s (Ajay Devgn) 4-2-4 formation and the complex moves on the field.

And it’s almost ever easy. The real it is, the tougher it gets for the makers.

“The challenge of making a sports biopic or any biopic are really the sentiments and the emotions associated with the sport or personality. Sometimes the sentiments and emotions come in the way of telling the story, the craft of filmmaking. But then, who said it’s going to be easy?,” said Shaad Ali.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)