Santosh Sivan
Arclightz and Films
Anu Malik
Gulzar
Sharukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor
Archlightz and films pvt. Ltd’s "Asoka" is a much talked about movie firstly because
of talented Shahrukh Khan and the gorgeous Kareena are pairing together.
Secondly, because it is been directed by Santosh Sivam and then a book about the making of the movie,
and so on and on and so on...
But after watching the movie we forget all the above plus points and are left with a three hour and fifteen
minutes long movie full of waterfalls, songs which keep popping up unnecessarily, garnished with Kareena’s
fair complexion and fight sequences.
The movie tries to depict king Asoka’s life (Chandra Gupt maurya’s grand son) the prince
of Magadha (3rd century B.C.). but it fails as it majorly concentrates on love story
between Asoka (Shahrukh) and Kaurwaki(Kareena Kapoor).
Asoka and his step-brother Susima (Ajit Kumar) are the two contenders to the Magadha throne.
However his father chooses Susima his step brother to the throne causing rivalry between Asoka & Susima.
Asoka’s mother worried about his well-being asks him to leave the rivalry and go away peacefully.
He lands up in a village where our heroien stays, what a co-incidence!
So after those waterfall sequences asoka & Kaurwaki fall in love "Woh To Hona Hi Tha..."
kaurwaki doesn’t know that Asoka is prince & calls him pawan, nor does he know that she isn’t a
princess.
Bheema (Rahul Dev) who is Kaurwaki & her brother Arya’s (Suraj Balaji)
bodyguard breaks the news that she isn’t a princess but what diference does it make to our bollywood lovers.
Asoka marries kaurwaki. He leaves for Magadha as he gets the news of his mother’s illness. But however
his mother is fit & fine and wants to meet her daughter-in-law. So he goes back to bring Kaurwaki
but Bheema informs him that both Kaurwaki and Arya are killed.
Angry Asoka decides to take revenge and a few scences later, injured Asoka, is nursed by Devi
(new comer Hrishitaa Bhatt).
Naturally now by our experience of seeing hindi films we can guess Asoka marries Devi.
With a good news that Asoka gonna be a father he gets a bad news of his mother’s death.
Our hero can’t remain silent. He kills his brother and now Asoka follows the path of violence and goes
on conquering more and more land. The only untouched land is Kalinga ruled by prince Arya (who is
still alive).
What follows is one of the bloodiest wars in history. Kaurwaki who is alive decides to take on the
enemy is injured alongwith thousands of dead and wounded bodies.
Although Asoka wins he cannot forgive himself for his mean and sinful actions.
As a cinematographer Santosh Sivan has done an excellent job but the editing is loose.
Though the movie has a historical subject it has a present day feel in it. Take for instance the music
by Anu Malik is too modern to match that era (3rd century B.C.). There are no huge and
majetic palaces. Moreover the language, constumes are also present day kind.
The characters don’t have those typical king & queen costume with dozens of ornaments on them. In
fact clothes worn are least, Kareena has worn the least clothes ever. Actually her clothes do not match
with her image as a princess.
The performance of Shahrukh is as usual brilliant and so is Kareena and it would have bloomed her more
if her clothes were not as revealing as they are. Hrishitaa Bhatt has no role to speak off. Rahul Dev
is much better than his earlier films. Suraj Balaji is impressive.
The moral of the story; the movie is meant for classes not for mases, especially our bollywood Masses.
It is only people who like different movies may like it.
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The movie tries to depict king Asoka’s life (Chandra Gupt maurya’s grand son) the prince
of Magadha (3rd century B.C.). but it fails as it majorly concentrates on love story
between Asoka (Shahrukh) and Kaurwaki(Kareena Kapoor). 
Angry Asoka decides to take revenge and a few scences later, injured Asoka, is nursed by Devi
(new comer Hrishitaa Bhatt).