Asoka

Amazon.com

Both stylish and stylized, Santosh Sivan's Hindi epic Asoka tells the heavily fictionalized but nonetheless compelling story of India's greatest emperor. In the third century B.C., the Mauryan king Asoka built a vast empire by means of ruthless conquest; but after the great Kalinga war he became sickened by the terrible slaughter he had caused, converted to Buddhism and dedicated the rest of his life to spreading peace and prosperity.

The film, though, concerns itself only with Asoka's rise to power, his love for the princess Kaurwaki, and his subsequent descent into brutality. Shah Rukh Khan is a brooding and temperamental prince who woos the lovely princess Kaurwaki (Kareena Kapoor) incognito and with the aid of the obligatory song-and-dance numbers. After a promising start involving mythic swords, heroic combat, and King Lear-like sibling rivalry, the film falls into a familiar Bollywood groove for a while until events overtake the unlucky lovers and Asoka turns mean when he thinks his princess is dead. She in turn searches vainly for her handsome hero, not knowing his real identity; and when the tyrannical Asoka attacks her kingdom she leads her people against his armies in a near-genocidal war. The finale, after a wonderfully staged battle that employs 6,000 extras, is genuinely touching.

Throughout, the film works best when striving for a realistic tone, though the fairy tale romance and song interludes are doubtless contrived to please the domestic Indian audience more than cynical Europeans. It's a shame that Asoka's true greatness is never realized on screen, as the story ends before his momentous conversion, but as a film that tackles big themes with real visual flair Asoka nonetheless deserves to find a worldwide audience. --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews:

Lousy, Exploitative, and Waste of Time and Talent.......2007-07-03

Avoid this movie. There are dozens of other Shahrukh Khan movies far better than this one, and many more beautiful Indian actresses rather than Kareena Kapoor. The biggest problem with this movie is that its an insult to one of India's most revered leaders. Its like making a movie about George Washington complete with hiphop music and the story ends before he becomes president. If you go to Wikipedia and look up Ashoka, you'll see that he has a powerful influence even on modern day India and Buddhism. Unfortunately, someone thought they could make a buck by condensing a small part of his life into a action/romance. Its just terrible. The singing and dancing are totally inappropriate. The battle scenes are small and a bit cheesy. The story is very confused (which woman does he love? why is he killing his brothers? why is he attacking Kalinga, why was he wandering around in Kalinga by himself incognito to start?), but less so if you read the real story to find the "backstory". And at the end, when I thought maybe it has some redeeming value where it shows Ashoka's great transformation, it suddenly ends. Its just garbage. If you want to see Khan in his glory see Khabie Kushie Khabe Gum, Dil Se or even Devdas. At least those have better songs, better dancing, appropriate musical interludes, better story, emotional arc, better costumes, and better family values and sense of romance. This movie was just about making a quick buck, and Khan should be ashamed to be a part of it.

Yay.......2007-06-27

Found this movie in Blockbuster but as usual it wasn't for sale in the bin. Great Bollywood movie.

Skip it if you're interested in Asoka the Buddhist.......2007-01-15

This is a movie about the Indian ruler Asoka, a significant figure in the history of Buddhism. As is apparently typical of Indian movies, "Asoka" is longer than your average Hollywood movie and includes lots of musical numbers.

I rented the video hoping it would be an entertaining way to learn a little more about Buddhist history, so I was disappointed that the movie ends with the bloody conquest that led to Asoka's embrace of Buddhist ideals. Like another reviewer, I want to see "Asoka, Part Two."

Asoka The Great.......2007-01-06

I am absolutely spellbound by this masterpiece. The movie starts well, it gets slow in the middle where the love story goes on but then takes enormous pace when the King Asoka starts his killing spree because he was completely broken by the loss of his beloved mother and his lover. Also he was told by his brother that to become Great he has to kill people which he wanted to be.

The acting by Shahrukh khan is exceptionally extraordinary and I don't think anybody in the entire world could have overtaken him. Initially I doubted his ability in that role but it changed after I saw the movie. He brings so much intensity and ferociousness into the character as if he is the real Asoka.

King Asoka is my Hero now, because of a point-When he held a sword he was matchless in that capacity and when he dropped it he is again matchless(and a good man too)(a great life indeed).

HAVE THEY MADE ASOKA PART TWO YET?.......2006-10-14

we need today to see the tale of his conversion to his mission of peace rather than genocide.

That is the message we need now as we drown in the blood red song and dance of genocidal imperial war. The emperor converts and fights with peace for peace.

Now, that would be a movie!

And it really happened five thousand years ago? Where have we been? Which way did we go? Please, show us the rest of the story!

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