Salaam Bombay!
Salaam Bombay! is a 1988 Indian film written and directed by Mira Nair, screenwritten by her longtime creative collaborator, Sooni Taraporevala. The film chronicles the day-to-day life of children living in the slums of Bombay, India's biggest city, it stars Shafiq Syed, Hansa Vithal, Chanda Sharma, Raghuvir Yadav, Anita Kanwar, Nana Patekar and Irrfan Khan. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, the National Board of Review Award for Top Foreign Film, the Golden Camera and Audience Awards at the Cannes Film Festival, three awards at the Montréal World Film Festival; the film was India's second film submission to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was among the list of "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" by The New York Times. Before the start of the film, Krishna has set fire to his bullying; this has landed him in big trouble with his mother. She has taken him to the nearby Apollo Circus and told him that he can only come home when he earns 500 rupees to pay for the damaged bike.
Krishna works for the circus. The film begins, his boss asks him to run an errand. Alone, with nowhere to turn, without the money to repay his mother, he travels to the nearest big city, Bombay; as soon as he arrives, he is robbed of his few possessions. He follows the thieves, befriends them, ends up in the city's notorious red-light area of Falkland Road, near the Grant Road Railway Station. One of the thieves, Chillum, a drug pusher and addict, helps Krishna to get a job at the Grant Road Tea Stall, becomes a mentor of sorts to Krishna. Baba, a local drug dealer, employs people like Chillum, his wife, Rekha, is a prostitute and they have a little daughter, Manju. Rekha is annoyed. Baba earlier promised to start a new life elsewhere, but it is a promise which Baba cannot fulfill, or has no intention of fulfilling. Krishna gets a new name, "Chaipau", learns to live with it, his goal is still to get the money he needs to return home to his mother, but he soon finds out that saving money in his new surroundings is next to impossible.
To make matters worse, he has a crush on a young girl named Sola Saal, sold to the brothel. He sets fire to her room and attempts to escape with her; the fire causes Krishna to get a severe beating, while Sola Saal, considered valuable property since she is still a virgin, denies starting the fire and tearfully tries to resist her enslavement. The madame of the house asks Baba to "tame her,". Meanwhile, Krishna works odd jobs to feed himself and look after Chillum, who can't live without drugs after Chillum is thrown out of Baba's employ after a disastrous interview with a foreign journalist. One of these odd jobs costs Krishna his job at the tea stall. To get more money and his pals rob an elderly Parsi man by breaking into his house in broad daylight. Krishna finds out that the 300 rupees he had saved, had been stolen by Chillum who had used them to buy drugs, which he had overdosed on and died. One night while returning home from work with their friends and Manju are apprehended by the police and taken to a juvenile home.
Krishna escapes and goes back to his world. He finds a new recruit in Baba's drug business has taken Chillum's name. Krishna tries to convince her to run away with him, she reveals that she is no longer interested in Krishna. Meanwhile, Rekha is told that the authorities will not release their daughter, because the mother is a prostitute. An angry Rekha decides to leave Baba, she is saved by the timely intervention of Krishna who, in a fit of rage, kills Baba and attempts to run away with Rekha, but they become separated in a parade honoring Ganesh. The film ends with a slow zoom in to Krishna's dejected face and being thrown back to the same reality he started out with in the film. Shafiq Syed – Krishna alias Chaipau Hansa Vithal – Manju Chanda Sharma – Sola Saal Raghuvir Yadav – Chillum Anita Kanwar – Rekha Nana Patekar – Baba Irrfan Khan – Letter Writer Raju Bernad – Keera Chandrashekhar Naidu – Chungal Sarfuddin Quarrassi – Koyla Mohanraj Babu – Salim Sanjana Kapoor – Foreigner reporter Most of the young actors who appeared in Salaam Bombay! were actual street children.
They received dramatic training at a special workshop in Bombay. In 1989, director Mira Nair established an organization called the Salaam Baalak Trust, to rehabilitate the children who appeared in the film. Most of them were helped; the Trust is still in existence, now lends support to street children in Bombay and Bhubaneshwar. Shafiq Syed, who played the role of Krishna in the movie now earns his living as an autorickshaw driver in Bangalore. 1988: Audience Award, Cannes Film Festival 1988: Golden Camera, Cannes Film Festival 1988: National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi 1988: National Film Award for Best Child Artist: Shafiq Syed 1988: National Board of Review Awards: Top Foreign Film 1988: Lilian Gish Award Excellence in Feature Film, Los Angeles Women in Film Festival 1988: Jury Prize, Montréal World Film Festival 1988: Most Popular Film, Montréal World Film Festival 1988: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Montréal World Film Festival 1989: Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1990: BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language 1989: César Award for Best Foreign Film (Meil
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards known as the Oscars, are a set of awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership; the various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more referred to by its nickname "Oscar". The award was sculpted by George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons. AMPAS first presented it in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; the Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now seen live worldwide, its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2018, was held on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, California.
The ceremony was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,072 Oscar statuettes have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 90th ceremony, it was the first ceremony since 1988 without a host. The first Academy Awards presentation was held on 16 May 1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people; the post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period; the ceremony ran for 15 minutes. Winners were announced to media three months earlier; that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards; this method was used until an occasion when the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began.
The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier. At that time, the winners were recognized for all of their work done in a certain category during the qualifying period. With the fourth ceremony, the system changed, professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on 27 March 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced; until foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Traditionally, the previous year's winner for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor present the awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, while the previous year's winner for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress present the awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
See § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated bronze on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in tall, weighs 8.5 lb, depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Directors and Technicians; the model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons' design; the statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years the bronze was abandoned in favor of Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy, plated in copper, nickel silver, 24-karat gold. Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones; the only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base.
The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C. W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, which contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes. From 1983 to 2015 50 Oscars in a tin alloy with gold plating were made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R. S. Owens & Company, it would take between four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes. In 2016, the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to Walden, New York-based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the statuettes retain their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal. Cast in liquid bronze from 3D-printed ceramic molds and polished, they are electroplated in 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York–based Epner Technology; the time required to produce 50 such statuettes is three months. R. S. Owens i
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012 film)
The Amazing Spider-Man is a 2012 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man, sharing the title of the character's longest-running comic book. It is the fourth theatrical Spider-Man film produced by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Entertainment, a reboot of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2002–2007 trilogy preceding it; the film was directed by Marc Webb. It was written by James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves, it stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker / Spider-Man alongside Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen and Sally Field; the film tells the story of Peter Parker, an introverted teenager from New York City, who takes up the alias of a masked vigilante: Spider-Man, after being bitten by a genetically engineered spider, gaining spider-like superhuman abilities as a result, in order to hunt down his adoptive father/uncle's murderer. Parker is compelled to stop his father's former scientific partner: Dr. Curt Connors, one of OsCorp's top biological researchers, who has accidentally exposed himself to an experimental mutagen, which has hampered his sanity and imbued him with a monstrous reptilian alter-ego, from spreading a mutation serum to the city's human population.
Development of the film began with the cancellation of Spider-Man 4 in 2010, ending director Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film series that featured Tobey Maguire as the titular superhero. Columbia Pictures opted to reboot the franchise with the same production team along with Vanderbilt to stay on with writing the next Spider-Man film, while Sargent and Kloves helped with the script as well. During pre-production, the main characters were cast in 2010. New designs were introduced from the comics, such as artificial web-shooters. Using Red Digital Cinema Camera Company's RED Epic camera, principal photography started in December 2010 in Los Angeles before moving to New York City; the film entered post-production in April 2011. 3ality Technica provided 3D image processing, Sony Pictures Imageworks handled CGI. This was the final American film to be scored by James Horner and released during his lifetime, before his death in 2015 from an aircraft accident. Sony Pictures Entertainment built a promotional website, releasing many previews and launched a viral marketing campaign, among other moves.
Tie-ins included a video game by Beenox. The film premiered on June 30 in Tokyo, was released in the United States on July 3, ten years after release of Spider-Man, in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D and released in home media in November 2012; the reboot received favorable reviews, with critics praising Andrew Garfield's performance, the visual style, James Horner's musical score, the realistic portrayal of the title character, but criticized some underdeveloped story-lines, noting the film's deleted scenes, the introduction of the Lizard as the villain for being too surreal for the film. The film was a box office success, grossing over $757 million worldwide, becoming the seventh highest-grossing film of 2012. A sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, was released on May 2, 2014. A young Peter Parker discovers. Peter's parents gather hidden documents, take Peter to the home of his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, mysteriously depart. Years a teenage Peter attends Midtown Science High School, where he is bullied by Flash Thompson, has caught the eye of Gwen Stacy.
At home, Peter finds his father's papers, learns his father worked with fellow scientist Dr. Curt Connors at Oscorp in the field of cross-species genetics. Sneaking into Oscorp, Peter enters a lab where a "biocable" is under development from genetically modified spiders, one of which bites him, he discovers he has developed spider-like abilities, such as sharp senses and speed. After studying Richard's papers, Peter visits the one-armed Connors, reveals he is Richard's son and gives Connors his father's "decay rate algorithm", the missing piece in Connors' experiments on regenerating limbs. Connors is being pressed by his superior, Dr. Ratha, to devise a cure for the dying head of Oscorp, Norman Osborn. In school, Peter is exposed after a basketball challenge with Flash, in which Peter accidentally shatters the backboard glass, his uncle changes work shifts to meet with the principal, asks Peter to walk May home for him that night. Peter forgets to do so, distracted while at Oscorp helping Connors regenerate the limb of a laboratory mouse.
At home, he and Ben argue, Peter leaves. At a nearby deli, a cashier refuses to let Peter buy milk. While searching for Peter, Ben attempts to stop the thief, is killed; the thief escapes. Afterward, Peter uses his new abilities to track down criminals matching the killer's description. After a fall lands him inside an abandoned gym, a luchador-wrestling poster inspires him to create a mask to hide his identity, he adds a spandex suit and builds mechanical devices to attach to his wrists to shoot a biocable "web". At dinner with Gwen's family, he has a tense conversation with her father, police captain George Stacy, over the new masked vigilante's motives. After dinner, Peter reveals his identity to Gwen, they kiss. After seeing success with the mouse using lizard DNA, Ratha demands Connors begin human trials immediately. Connors refuses to put innocent people at risk. Ratha fires Connors and decides to test Connors' serum at a Veterans Administration hospital under the guise of a flu shot. In an act of desperation, Connors tries the formula on himself.
After passing out, he awakens to find his missing arm has regenerate
China
China the People's Republic of China, is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering 9,600,000 square kilometers, it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. China emerged as one of the world's earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE. Since China has expanded, re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin established the first Chinese empire; the succeeding Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC until 220 AD, saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements.
The invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty and Northern Song completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread in Asia, as the new Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and Horn of Africa. Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution; the Chinese Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949, when the Communist Party of China established the People's Republic of China, a unitary one-party sovereign state on Mainland China, while the Kuomintang-led government retreated to the island of Taiwan. The political status of Taiwan remains disputed. Since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China's economy has been one of the world's fastest-growing with annual growth rates above 6 percent. According to the World Bank, China's GDP grew from $150 billion in 1978 to $12.24 trillion by 2017. Since 2010, China has been the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and since 2014, the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity.
China is the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest standing army and second-largest defense budget; the PRC is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as it replaced the ROC in 1971, as well as an active global partner of ASEAN Plus mechanism. China is a leading member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, WTO, APEC, BRICS, the BCIM, the G20. In recent times, scholars have argued that it will soon be a world superpower, rivaling the United States; the word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century. It is not a word used by the Chinese themselves, it has been traced through Portuguese and Persian back to the Sanskrit word Cīna, used in ancient India."China" appears in Richard Eden's 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. Barbosa's usage was derived from Persian Chīn, in turn derived from Sanskrit Cīna.
Cīna was first used including the Mahābhārata and the Laws of Manu. In 1655, Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived from the name of the Qin dynasty. Although this derivation is still given in various sources, it is complicated by the fact that the Sanskrit word appears in pre-Qin literature; the word may have referred to a state such as Yelang. The meaning transferred to China as a whole; the origin of the Sanskrit word is still a matter of debate, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China"; the shorter form is "China" Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó, a term which developed under the Western Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne. It was applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing, it was used as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia people from perceived "barbarians". The name Zhongguo is translated as "Middle Kingdom" in English.
Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominids inhabited China between 2.24 million and 250,000 years ago. The hominid fossils of Peking Man, a Homo erectus who used fire, were discovered in a cave at Zhoukoudian near Beijing; the fossilized teeth of Homo sapiens have been discovered in Fuyan Cave in Hunan. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 7000 BCE, Damaidi around 6000 BCE, Dadiwan from 5800–5400 BCE, Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BCE; some scholars have suggested. According to Chinese tradition, the first dynasty was the Xia, which emerged around 2100 BCE; the dynasty was considered mythical by historians until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou, Henan in 1959. It remains unclear whether these sites are the remains of the Xia dynasty or of another culture from the same period; the succeeding Shang dynasty is the earliest to be confirmed by contemporary records. The Shang ruled the plain of the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BCE.
Their oracle bone script
Jaipur
Jaipur is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. It was founded on 18 November 1727 by Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amer, after whom the city is named; as of 2011, the city had a population of 3.1 million, making it the tenth most populous city in the country. Jaipur is known as the Pink City, due to the dominant color scheme of its buildings, it is located 268 km from the national capital New Delhi. Jaipur is a popular tourist destination in India and forms a part of the west Golden Triangle tourist circuit along with Delhi and Agra, it serves as a gateway to other tourist destinations in Rajasthan such as Jodhpur, Jaisalmer Udaipur and Mount Abu. Jaipur is located 616 km from Shimla. Jaipur is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Amer Fort; the city of Jaipur was founded in 1727 by Jai Singh II, the Raja of Amer who ruled from 1699 to 1743. He planned to shift his capital from Amer, 11 kilometres from Jaipur to accommodate the growing population and increasing scarcity of water.
Jai Singh consulted several books on architecture and architects while planning the layout of Jaipur. Under the architectural guidance of Vidyadhar Bhattacharya, Jaipur was planned based on the principles of Vastu shastra and Shilpa Shastra; the construction of the city began in 1726 and took four years to complete the major roads and palaces. The city was divided into nine blocks, two of which contained the state buildings and palaces, with the remaining seven allotted to the public. Huge ramparts were pierced by seven fortified gates. Jaipur is a standout amongst the most rich legacy urban areas in India. Established in the year 1727, the city is named after Maharaja Jai Singh II, the primary organizer of this city, he was a Kachhwaha Rajput and ruled the region in the vicinity of 1699 and 1744. During the rule of Sawai Ram Singh I, the city was painted pink to welcome H. R. H. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1876. Many of the avenues remained painted in pink, giving Jaipur a distinctive appearance and the epithet Pink city.
In the 19th century, the city grew and by 1900 it had a population of 160,000. The wide boulevards were paved and its chief industries were the working of metals and marble, fostered by a school of art founded in 1868; the city had three colleges, including a Sanskrit college and a girls' school opened during the reign of the Maharaja Ram Singh II. Large areas of the city including the airport were flooded in August 1981, resulting in the death of eight people and much damage to the city's Dravyavati River; the floods were caused by three days of cloud burst. Jaipur has a hot semi-arid climate under Koppen's climate classification, it receives over 63 cm of rainfall annually. But most rains occur in the monsoon months between September. Temperatures remain high during summer from April to early July having average daily temperatures of around 27.6' C. During the monsoon there are frequent, heavy rains and thunderstorms; the winter months of November to February are mild and pleasant, with average temperatures ranging from 18' C and with high humidity, but with occasional cold waves.
Jaipur is a high urban heat island zone with surrounding rural temperatures falling below freezing in winters. According to provisional report of 2011 census, Jaipur city had a population of 3,073,350; the overall literacy rate for the city is 84.34%. 90.61% males and 77.41% females were literate. The sex ratio was 898 females per 1,000 males; the child sex ratio stood at 854. According to the 2011 census, Hindus form the majority religious group comprising 77.9% of the city's population, followed by Muslims and others. Jaipur Municipal Corporation is responsible for maintaining the city's civic infrastructure and carrying out associated administrative duties; the Municipal Corporation is headed by a mayor. There are 91 wards and each ward is represented by an elected member. Jaipur Development Authority is the nodal government agency responsible for the planning and development of Jaipur. Jaipur consists of two parliamentary constituencies Jaipur Rural. In January 2019 Vishnu Laata was elected Mayor of Jaipur.
Jaipur is a major tourist destination in India forming a part of the Golden Triangle. In the 2008 Conde Nast Traveller Readers Choice Survey, Jaipur was ranked the 7th best place to visit in Asia. According to TripAdvisor's 2015 Traveller's Choice Awards for Destination, Jaipur ranked 1st among the Indian destinations for the year; the Presidential Suite at the Raj Palace Hotel, billed at US$45,000 per night, was listed in second place on CNN's World's 15 most expensive hotel suites in 2012. Jaipur Exhibition & Convention Centre is exhibition centre, it is famous for organising events such as Vastara, Jaipur Jewellery Show, Stonemart 2015 and Resurgent Rajasthan Partnership Summit 2015. Visitor attractions include the Hawa Mahal, Jal Mahal, City Palace, Amer Fort, Jantar Mantar, Nahargarh Fort, Jaigarh Fort, Birla Mandir, Govind Dev Ji Temple, Garh Ganesh Temple, Moti Dungri Ganesh Temple, Royal Gaitor cenotaphs, Sanghiji Jain temple and the Jaipur Zoo; the Jantar Mantar observatory and Amer Fort are one of the World Heritage Sites.
Hawa Mahal is a five-storey pyramidal shaped monument with 953 windows that rises 15 metres from its high base. Sisodiya Rani Bagh and Kanak Vrindavan are the major parks in Jaipur. Raj Mandir is a notable cinema hall in Jaipur. J
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British-Indian drama film, a loose adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author Vikas Swarup, telling the story of Jamal Malik, age 18, from the Juhu slums of Mumbai. Starring Dev Patel as Jamal, filmed in India, the film was directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, produced by Christian Colson, with Loveleen Tandan credited as co-director; as a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Jamal Malik surprises everyone by being able to answer every question correctly. Accused of cheating, Jamal recounts his life story to the police, illustrating how he is able to answer each question correctly. After its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and the London Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire had a nationwide release in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009, in India on 22 January 2009, in the United States on 23 January 2009. Regarded as a sleeper hit, Slumdog Millionaire was acclaimed, being praised for its plot, soundtrack and performances Patel's.
It was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight—the most for any 2008 film—including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay. It won seven BAFTA Awards including five Critics' Choice Awards and four Golden Globes; however it was the subject of controversy in India, due to its portrayal of Indian society, the use of the word "slumdog" in the title and the exploitation of some of the younger actors. 18-year-old Jamal Malik, an Indian Muslim from the Dharavi slum, is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, is one question away from the grand prize. However, before the ₹20 million question, he is detained and tortured by the police, who suspect him of cheating because of the impossibility of a simple "slumdog" with little education knowing all the answers. Jamal recounts, through flashbacks, the incidents in his life. Jamal's flashbacks begin with his managing, at age five, to obtain the autograph of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, where he had to jump into a toilet cesspit when his brother Salim blocked the door, who sells the autograph, followed by the death of his mother during the Bombay riots.
As they flee the riot, the brothers meet a girl from their slum. Salim is reluctant to take her in, but Jamal suggests that she could be the "third musketeer", a character from the Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers, whose name they do not know; the three are found by Maman—a gangster who tricks and trains street children into becoming beggars. When Salim discovers Maman is blinding the children in order to make them more effective beggars, he flees with Jamal and Latika to a departing train. Latika fails to board the train as Salim purposefully lets go of her hand, in revenge for an embarrassing prank that Latika had played on Salim; this resulted in her being recaptured by Maman. Over the next few years and Jamal make a living travelling on top of trains, selling goods, picking pockets, working as dish washers, pretending to be tour guides at the Taj Mahal, where they steal people's shoes. At Jamal's insistence, they return to Mumbai to find Latika, discovering that she is being raised by Maman to be a prostitute, soon to fetch him a high price as a virgin.
The brothers rescue her, while escaping Maman they shoot him to death. Salim manages to get a job with Javed—Maman's rival crime lord. Back at their room, Salim orders Jamal to leave him and Latika alone; when Jamal refuses, Salim draws a gun on him, whereupon Latika persuades Jamal to obey his brother and leave. Years Jamal, now a Chaiwala in an Indian call centre, searches the centre's database for Salim and Latika, he fails in finding Latika, while succeeding in finding Salim, now a high-ranking lieutenant in Javed's crime organization. Jamal reproaches Salim, who pleads for forgiveness, offers him to stay in his luxurious apartment. Jamal bluffs his way into Javed's residence to reunite with Latika but as he professes his love for her, Latika asks him to forget about her. Jamal promises to wait for her every day at five o'clock at the VT station. Latika attempts to meet him there, but is recaptured by Javed's men, led by Salim, once Javed moves to another house, outside Mumbai, the two again lose contact.
Jamal becomes a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, knowing that she watches the show regularly. Much to the consternation of Prem Kumar, the show's host, Jamal becomes a wonder across India. During a break before Jamal answers the penultimate question, Kumar tries to fool him by feeding him the wrong answer whilst in the men's room. After the break Jamal uses the 50/50 lifeline, leaving Kumar's answer and one other, but chooses the other one; the episode ends before the final question can be asked, Kumar leads Jamal out of the studio where he is forced into a police van. After an initial beating, the police inspector listens to Jamal's explanation of how he reached each answer. Finding all of them "bizarrely plausible", he allows him back on the show. At Javed's safehouse, Latika sees Jamal on the news and Salim, in an effort to make amends for his past behaviour, gives Latika his mobile phone and car keys, asks her to forgive him and to go to Jamal. Latika is reluctant out of fear of Javed, but escapes.
Salim fills a bathtub with money and sits in it, waiting for Javed and his men as they realize that he let Latika free. Jamal's final question is the name of the third musketeer in The Three Musketeers, which he never learned. Jamal uses his
Maqbool
Maqbool is a 2003 Indian crime tragedy directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and starring Pankaj Kapur, Irrfan Khan and Masumeh Makhija in an adaptation of the play Macbeth by Shakespeare. The plot of the film is based on that of Macbeth with regard to events and characterisation; the film did not perform remarkably at the box office, but won director Vishal Bhardwaj international acclaim. Apart from directing it, he had composed the background score and songs for the film. Bhardwaj moved on to adapting William Shakespeare's Othello in his 2006 film Omkara which won him commercial as well as critical success, he directed Haider in 2014 adapting Hamlet, leading to what is now called his Shakespeare trilogy. The film had its North American premiere at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. Though the film failed to garner much of an audience during its theatrical run in India, critics were appreciative and Pankaj Kapur went on to win a Filmfare Award for Best Actor and a National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor.
The film was screened in the Marché du Film section of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. The film is based with the Mumbai underworld as its backdrop. Maqbool is the right-hand man of a powerful underworld don. Maqbool feels a close connection and personal indebtedness to Abba Ji. Seeing their close relationship, but sensing Maqbool's ambition, two corrupt policemen predict that Maqbool will soon take over the reins of the Mumbai Underworld from Abba Ji. Nimmi is Abba Ji's mistress. Nimmi persuades him to kill Abba Ji to take over as Don. Maqbool is torn between his love for Nimmi and his loyalty to Abba Ji, but he begins to prepare the ground for becoming a Don, by ensuring that others in the line of succession cannot interfere. Maqbool murders Abba Ji in cold blood while he is in bed at night, with Nimmi next to him. Maqbool takes over as Don, just as planned. There is suspicion, within the gang, of Maqbool's role in the death of Abba Ji, the lovers meet a tragic end. In addition to the portrayals of the three tragic heroes, the film offers performances by supporting cast members, in particular Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah.
The two open the film in their roles as black comic relief corrupt police inspectors-cum-astrologers, predict the fall of Abba Ji—who has them on his payroll—and the rise and fall of Maqbool. Contrary to the original play, the corrupt cops are not just passive soothsayers. In an effort to sustain what they refer to as "balancing forces," they are actively involved in shaping events, like aiding in providing information to Abba Ji's enforcers to wipe out a rival gang, using subtle nuances in coercing Maqbool to shift loyalties, deliberately botching an "encounter" attempt on Riyaz Boti and subsequently setting up an alliance between a rival politician and a fleeing Guddu and Riyaz Boti against Maqbool. Maqbool received universal critical acclaim. Rediff described the film as "a visual gallery, an intelligent blend of dark, tragic overtones and comic, satirical undertones". Variety wrote that while the visuals are great, audiences might need an understanding of Macbeth to enjoy the film. India Today described it as a "haunting operatic tragedy".
Outlook said that it "effectively transported the essence of the story to the milieu of the Bombay underworld of our times". The soundtrack features eleven songs composed by Vishal Bhardwaj with lyrics by Gulzar. Mendes, AC. “Transculturating Shakespeare: Vishal Bhardwaj’s Mumbai Macbeth”, Casie Hermansson and Janet Zepernick, Where is Adaptation? Mapping cultures and contexts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 165-180. ISBN 9789027201492 Maqbool on IMDb Maqbool at AllMovie Review at Rediff.com Review at Variety.com The Hollywood Reporter review
