Dangal

**Dangal** is a 2016 Indian live-action film directed by Nitesh Tiwari.

It focuses on a pehlwani amateur wrestler who trains his daughters Geeta and Babita to become India's first world-class female wrestlers.

The film was released on December 21, 2016.

## Plot

Mahavir Singh Phogat, a former amateur wrestler trained in the pehlwani style of Indian wrestling, is a national wrestling champion residing in Balali, Haryana. His average Indian father forces him to give up the sport to obtain gainful employment. Dejected he could not win a medal for his country, he vows that his unborn son will. Disappointed on having four daughters, he gives up hope. But when his older daughters Geeta and Babita come home after beating two boys in response to derogatory comments, he realizes their potential to become wrestlers and begins coaching them.

His methods seem harsh, including gruelling early morning workouts and short forced haircuts. Despite facing backlash from the villagers, he goes ahead with them, training them in his makeshift mud pit. Initially, the girls resent their father for his treatment but soon realize that he cares for their future. Motivated, they willingly participate in wrestling tournaments where they defeat boys. Unable to afford wrestling mats, Mahavir uses mattresses and trains them in freestyle wrestling to prepare them for competitive events. Geeta goes on to win the junior and senior championships at the state and national levels before heading to the National Sports Academy in Patiala to train for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games.

Once there, Geeta makes friends and begins to disregard the discipline taught by Mahavir under duress from her coach Pramod Kadam, whose training methods and wrestling techniques completely differ from her father's. Therefore, she loses every match at the international level. During a visit home, she defeats a visibly exhausted Mahavir in a ferocious bout after egotistically mocking him. Babita reminds Geeta of her mistake and that she should respect Mahavir. Soon after, Babita wins the national championship and follows Geeta to the academy. After the two sisters have an emotional conversation in which Babita provides her encouragement, Geeta tearfully makes peace with Mahavir.

Before the Commonwealth Games, Pramod forces Geeta to compete in the 51 kg weight class rather than in her usual 55 kg. Irritated upon learning this, Mahavir goes to Patiala with his nephew Omkar and begins coaching the girls secretly. Learning about this, and furious with Mahavir's interference, Pramod wants the girls expelled; the sports authority issues a warning but allows them to continue. Mahavir is barred from entering the academy, and the girls are forbidden to go out. Determined to continue assisting his daughters, Mahavir obtains tapes of Geeta's previous unsuccessful bouts and coaches her by pointing out her errors over the phone.

At the games, competing in the 55 kg class, Geeta eases her way into the final. Mahavir constantly contradicts Pramod's instructions while sitting in the audience, and she follows her father's instructions instead. Just before the gold medal bout, jealous Pramod conspires to lock Mahavir in a room.

In the bout, Geeta manages to win the first session but loses the second. Trailing 1–5 in the final session and with nine seconds left, she recalls the tactics taught by her father and a 5-pointer, and executes it on her opponent in the final three seconds, taking the score to 6–5 in her favour, thus winning the session and the bout 2–1. In the process, she becomes the first Indian female wrestler to win gold at the Commonwealth Games. Mahavir returns just in time to embrace his daughters, dashing Pramod's hopes of obtaining credit before the news media.

## Cast and Characters

* Aamir Khan as Mahavir Singh Phogat
* Sakshi Tanwar as Daya Shobha Kaur
* Fatima Sana Shaikh as Geeta Phogat
	+ Zaira Wasim as Child Geeta
* Sanya Malhotra as Babita Kumari
	+ Suhani Bhatnagar as Child Babita
* Aparshakti Khurana as Omkar Singh Phogat
	+ Ritvik Sahore as Teenage Omkar
* Ananya Sharma as Ritu Phogat
* Lakshita Goyal as Sangeeta Phogat
* Girish Kulkarni as Pramod Kadam
* Vivan Bhatena as Harkinder
* Shishir Sharma as Head of Department of the National Sports Academy
* Meenu Prajapati as Jasmeet
* Badrul Islam as Shamim
* Karmveer Choudhary as Maan Singh Phogat
* Anurag Arora as Rajpal Singh Phogat

## Music

See Also: Dangal (Soundtrack)

The music for the film is composed by Pritam, with lyrics penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya in Hindi, Rajesh Malarvannan in Tamil and Rajshri Sudhakar in Telugu. Daler Mehndi sang the film's title track. The song "Dhaakad" was sung by rapper Raftaar and became popular receiving 12 million views, in three days. Khan rapped his own version of the song and included it in the album. The soundtrack album was released on 23 November 2016 in Hindi and 26 November 2016 in Tamil and Telugu, under the Zee Music Company label. The film's soundtrack album is set to have a Japanese release published by Rambling Records on 13 April 2018.

## Production

### Development

Divya V. Rao, a member of Disney's creative team, read a newspaper article in 2012 about Mahavir Singh Phogat, who trained his daughters to become world champions. She thought this would make for a great film, and spoke about this to Kapur and other Disney personnel. Disney approached Nitesh Tiwari to write and direct the story. Tiwari met Phogat and his daughters, who instantly agreed to tell the story. Tiwari worked on the script for close to a year with Gupta, Jain and Mehrotra before going to Ronnie Screwvala, the CEO of UTV Motion Pictures, and Kapur with the final script, while suggesting that Aamir Khan play Phogat.

Months prior to being approached for with the script, Khan had invited the Phogat sisters onto his television talk show Satyamev Jayate, interviewing them on the first episode of season three in 2014. A few months after he interviewed them on Satyamev Jayate, he was approached by Tiwari. Kapur and Tiwari went to Khan with the story, and Khan loved it in its first narration. Khan had just finished Dhoom 3 and had begun shooting for PK. He wanted to do the film after 5–10 years when he would turn 60 because the role demanded him to be 55 and he was still doing younger roles. But the story remained in his mind and a few months later, he called up Tiwari and asked him to narrate the script once again.

After the release of PK in 2014, Khan announced that he would play the role of a wrestler in his next film titled Dangal directed by Tiwari, a cinematic biography of the former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat. Khan, who was to produce the film himself with Disney, said to reporters, "Nitesh has written a wonderful story. The topic is very important, it's very dramatic. It highlights the discrimination that is meted out to the girl child in India. The best part is that he has done it in a very entertaining manner. The heart of the story is emotional, but it also has a lot of humor. Raju Hirani has this unique way to tell a story where he says something socially very relevant but he tells his story in a very entertaining manner. Similarly, Nitesh has written a very entertaining lovely script, the dialogues are very entertaining. Each time I listen to the dialogues, I laugh a lot. I cry as well as laugh."

In March 2015, Junior Indian women's wrestling team coach Kripa Shankar Patel Bishnoi was approached by Aamir Khan Productions to train Khan and the entire crew of Dangal. Bishnoi said about the film in a Hindustan Times interview, "Very few Indians encourage women for wrestling, especially because of the uniform. This film will change that perception too. People would hopefully want to see their daughters taking up wrestling as a sport."

Khan lost some weight and took Haryanvi lessons and dialect training for the film. He played two distinct roles in the film: the 60-year-old wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, and the 20-year-old version of Phogat. Khan reportedly gained 30 kg and weighed 98 kg to play the role of the older Phogat, and then lost the weight to play the younger role in Dangal. The film was produced on a budget of ₹70 crore (US$10.42 million).

### Casting

In March 2015, Taapsee Pannu, Deeksha Seth and Akshara Haasan were being considered for the roles of Khan's on-screen daughters. In April, Shaikh and Malhotra were cast as the daughters, who hailed from the Jat community of Balali village of Bhiwani, Haryana. Geeta Phogat had participated in the London Olympics in 2012, while Babita had won the gold medal in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. In June 2015, Wasim and Bhatnagar were roped in as child actors for the film. Khurana was also cast in the film, making his debut after a career as a VJ. Mukesh Chhabra served as the casting director, with Vikram Singh being recruited to play the role of the villain. Khan's nephew Pablo, who is the son of Mansoor Khan, was the film's assistant director. Mallika Sherawat auditioned for a role. In August 2015, Rajkumar Rao, who previously worked with Khan in Talaash, was approached for an important role. After auditioning 70 actresses for the role, Tanwar was brought on as Daya Kaur, the wife of Mahavir Singh Phogat. Ananya was chosen to play Sangita, the youngest daughter of Mahavir Phogat. In October 2015, Vivan Bhatena, who appeared in a key role in Talaash, was selected to play a supporting role in the film. In an interview in January 2017, Rao stated that if Khan had declined the role, the only other choices would have been Mohanlal and Kamal Haasan.

For the film's Tamil language dub, Khan initially approached Rajinikanth to voice his role. Despite Rajinikanth enjoying the film, they both eventually decided against it, as they found Rajinikanth's voice to be too recognizable to go along with Khan's appearance.

### Filming

To prepare for the role, Shaikh and Malhotra watched several videos on wrestling to understand "how wrestlers move, walk, their body language". Both Malhotra and Sheikh went through five rounds of auditions, physical training and workshops with Tiwari and Khan. They were trained by coach and former wrestler Kripa Shankar Patel Bishnoi. From September 2015 to December 2015, Khan gained 9% fat, weighing around 98 kg for Dangal, and from January 2016 to April 2016, he regained the shape that he had opted for in Dhoom 3 and would hear the script for next future films, halting shooting of Dangal for said period.

The shooting schedule of Dangal began on 1 September 2015. The villages of Ludhiana were given a Haryanvi transformation. The shooting took place in the villages of Gujjarwal, Narangwal, Kila Raipur, Dango and Leel in Punjab and Haryana. The village of Dango, which is in the Pakhowal Tehsil in Ludhiana, is veteran actor Dharmendra's ancestral village.

The first scene was shot on 21 September 2015 in Ludhiana with the presence of Mahavir Singh Phogat and his daughters, Geeta and Babita. On 14 November 2015, while shooting in Ludhiana, Khan suffered minor injuries resulting in muscle spasms in his back. On 20 November 2015, Khan collapsed after sustaining a shoulder injury on the set. After his recovery, he resumed shooting in Pune on 9 December 2015.

The team filmed in and around stadiums at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune. At the time, the complex hosted the 2015 Roll Ball World Cup, and athletes of the Netherlands national rollball team and Slovenia women's national roll ball team were recruited to play background athletes in the film. The team also shot some portions of the film in Symbiosis International University, Pune.

On 19 January 2016, Khan and the entire crew of the film shot in Delhi, at Talkatora Stadium, to film wrestling sequences. The crew then moved to Thyagaraj Stadium to shoot sequences of Commonwealth Games and National Games. The first schedule of shooting was also done in schools and in Dango village.

The second schedule of the film started on 16 June 2016 at the Akhada Leel near Toosa village, in Ludhiana district. It is one of the largest villages in Punjab. Khan said, "When I came to Ludhiana, I was very fat. At that time, we shot for the scenes where Mahavir has become old. 85 percent of the film is about his 'old' look only. Now we are shooting for the portion when Mahavir was young."

With the film being set in multiple decades, the cinematographer Satyajit Pande and colourist Ashirwad Hadkar experimented with a number of tests for skin tones and costumes during the pre-production stage. Natural light was majorly employed in the film. To portray the 1980s, the "sources were kept white-hot and the skin tones yellow-warm" for the day sequences, and "a consistent bulb warm tone was maintained" for the night sequences. With varying colour temperatures in the process of filming over an entire day starting early mornings until late evenings, visual effects plates were used and digital intermediate process employed.

## Release

Dangal was released in the United States on 21 December 2016 and worldwide on 23 December 2016. The film was shown on an estimated 4,300 screens in India and 1,000 screens internationally. It was also released in Tamil and Telugu dubbed versions as Yuddham. It was declared tax-free in six Indian states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, to promote Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, a Government of India's social campaign aiming to reduce the selective abortion of females, to protect girls, and to educate them. The film is available as VOD service on popular streaming platform Netflix.

Dangal's second phase of release was in the Chinese markets of East Asia, starting with Taiwan on 24 March 2017. Dangal was screened at the 7th Beijing International Film Festival, the first Indian film to be screened at the festival, in the non-competing panorama section in April 2017 as Shuaijiao Baba (Let's Wrestle, Father!), and received a standing ovation. The screening was attended by a number of Chinese celebrities, including actress Liu Yifei and actor Wu Gang. It released theatrically in China on 5 May 2017, on 9,000 screens, "the widest ever release for an Indian film in any territory", and opened to overwhelming response from critics and audiences alike. However, the film was trimmed by 20 minutes "to be in line with what the Chinese are used to." The film released in Hong Kong on 24 August 2017.

In June 2017, Khan announced plans to release the film in Japan and South America. Dangal released in Japan on 6 April 2018, and was the first film to be co-distributed by Disney with Japan's Gaga Corporation. Its Japanese language title is ダンガル きっと、つよくなる (Dangaru Kitto, Tsuyoku Naru), which has some similarity to the Japanese title of 3 Idiots (Kitto, Umaku Iku). A preview of Dangal was held on 25 January 2018 by the Japan Wrestling Association, whose chairman recommended the film as inspiration for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Another preview screening was held for the Japan Olympic wrestling team during training camp in February 2018, and was well received by the audience.

Dangal was released in South Korea on 25 April 2018. The film had its South Korean premier on 23 April 2018, which was attended by the South Korean female wrestling team for the 2018 Asian Games.

### Home Media

The film has been released on several Chinese online streaming platforms. As of November 2018, Dangal has been watched more than 400 million times across three Chinese streaming platforms: nearly 200 million on Tencent Video (140 million in Hindi, nearly 60 million in dubbed Mandarin), more than 144 million on IQiyi (120 million in Hindi, over 24 million in Mandarin), and over 80 million on Youku.

## Reception

### Critical Response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 17 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1 out of 10.

Critics often praised the portrayal of the subject matter in Dangal. Rachit Gupta of Filmfare magazine gave the film a full five-star rating calling it "perfect in every sense of the word." He added, "The film's direction and writing is so riveting that it coaxes it's the viewer to stand up and applaud. Great editing and filmmaking technique aside, Dangal features wrestling matches that are authentic and real."  Meena Iyer of The Times of India called it "inspiring and entertaining" and awarded a four-and-a-half out of five star rating. She commended the writing of being for "tongue-in-cheek quality, peppered with humour and several poignant father-daughter emotions." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave a three out of five star rating and stated that the film worked on two parameters: that it is a "straight-forward film about a popular sport" and the "strong feminist statement about girls being the equal of boys, if not better, in an area they've never been seen, let alone accepted." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film four out of five stars and calling it a "hugely entertaining sporting saga", pointed out that unlike other Bollywood films, Dangal does not "go for broke in terms of melodramatic flourish" and that it refrains from "demonstrative chest-thumping and flag-waving". He felt it blended "humour with intensity, and intimacy with spectacle, to perfection."

Ananya Bhattacharya of India Today gave a four out of five-star rating and wrote, "the fights, emotional turmoil, the father-daughter tiffs, take centre-stage in Dangal." She added, "Tiwari uses every single trope in the book of Bollywood sports films ... with a freshness and expertise seldom seen." Awarding the film a full five stars, Rohit Bhatnagar of Deccan Chronicle called it "an unmissable epic". Terming the narrative "engaging to the core", he drew comparisons to Chak De! India, while commending the acting performances and cinematography. Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com felt that Dangal was "one of those few films that discuss strategy and technique in a manner that's easy and entertaining to grasp". Calling it an "exhilarating creation" and praising the acting performances, she wrote, "the raw, rough, visceral choreography of the fights... evokes sheer awe". Lisa Tsering of The Hollywood Reporter felt the film is driven by "emotional resonance, technical artistry and compelling performances" while adding that "it's so thrilling to watch. Not only do the family scenes ring true, but Tiwari approaches the wrestling sequences with intelligence and sensitivity."

While commending the acting performances of all the lead actors, most critics focused praise on Khan's performance. Deepa Gauri of Khaleej Times wrote that Khan "puts in such an earnest and inspired performance that it will go down in the history of Indian cinema as one of the finest." Maitland McDonagh wrote for Film Journal International that "all four actresses playing Geeta and Babita are strikingly good, and Khan stands out as the deeply flawed Mahavir." Aniruddha Guha of MensXP.com thought that Khan captured the character's "highs and lows with flourish" and called it a "truly great performance", while adding that "the girls of 'Dangal' are a real find." Rohit Vats of Hindustan Times called it "best performance till date". Raja Sen of Rediff.com felt Khan's character was "both fascinating and flawed" and added that he is "a winner utterly sure of his beliefs who bends the world around him to his will. It is the performance of a lifetime". Baradwaj Rangan of The Hindu noted in his personal blog that Khan brought out the contradicting nature of the character "beautifully" and called it "one of his finest performances." Variety magazine's Owen Gleiberman felt that Khan, despite looking like a "jock version of Salman Rushdie... with a tight-lipped mask, he finds a hundred ways to communicate emotion."

The film had its share of detractors who, while praising the narrative and performances, felt that the concept of feminism portrayed in the film was flawed. They pointed out that the wrestler-father, in pursuit of his goal of winning a medal for the country, trains his daughters against their will. Reviewing for The Hindu, Namrata Joshi wrote that the film despite aiming not to hide "chinks in the feminist armour", it does not explore its "dilemmas and complexities" and only "brush[es] things under the easy nationalistic carpet" by "justifying everything with "nation before the individual" logic." She complained of the "easy celebration of the supposed fall of patriarchy" depicted in the film and maintained that "men actually still remain very much in control." The view was echoed by Vartika Pande, in her "Feminist Reading" of the film for feminisminindia.com, who wrote, "Dangal ends up being a film about a patriarch at the helm who "empowers" women and obviously takes all the accolades." Al Jazeera's Azad Essa, while reviewing the film for Independent Online observed that "the elevation of women is still a manifestation of an unfulfilled male dream. It is the male coach who emerges as the true hero, and not the women." Strong responses on similar lines from a small section of the Chinese viewers met the film, where, following the release, a fresh debate on feminism began. A viewer complained that the film "reeks of patriarchy and male chauvinism".

Criticism was also directed at other areas of the film such as the characterisation of the coach at the academy. Uday Bhatia of Mint felt it was "incompetent and vindictive". Rajeev Masand felt it was "shoddy" and that the "twist in the film's final act ... came off as completely unconvincing". Tanul Thakur of TheWire.in also felt that the coach was "reduced to a caricature" and that "he simply exists because Aamir can become a hero." Thakur wrote that the second half of the film was "repetitive and bloated" and that it uses "clichés... needlessly trying to inject drama".

In Hong Kong, Nicola Chan of South China Morning Post rated the film 5 out of 5 stars. In Japan, Yuri Wakabayashi of Eiga gave the film a positive review. Yoshika Yamada of IGN Japan called the film a "masterpiece" and rated it 9 out of 10. Zakzak rated the film 4 out of 5 stars. The film has received praise from a number of Japanese celebrities, including film critic Takeo Matsuzaki, television personality Tsutomu Sekine, video game developer Hideo Kojima, manga authors Keisuke Itagaki and Noboru Kawasaki, and athletes including Olympic wrestlers Saori Yoshida and Kazuhito Sakae, professional wrestlers Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami, tennis player Shuzo Matsuoka, and weightlifter Hiromi Miyake. Upon release in Japan, it ranked first among early April 2018 releases in audience polls conducted by Filmarks (4.22 out of 5 stars) and PIA (93.3 out of 100).

### Box Office

Dangal grossed ₹716 crore after its initial run. It included ₹511 crore in India and ₹205 crore overseas. After it collected a nett of ₹345 crore over its third weekend from release, it beat the record held by PK for the highest grossing Indian film.

Dangal became highest grossing Indian film worldwide in July 2017, with an estimated gross of ₹2,000 crore by some sources, after its second phase of release in China and Taiwan. These numbers could be fake as there are no concrete source for these. In July 2017, a spokesperson for Aamir Khan denied the reports that Dangal has crossed ₹ 2,000 crore worldwide.

The worldwide distributor share of Dangal was ₹525 crore as of 1 June 2017. As of June 2017, the worldwide gross of Dangal stood at US$307 million (₹2,000 crore). Dangal emerged as 30th highest-grossing film of 2016 worldwide and the fifth highest-grossing non-English film of all time. The Movie was marketed by a Mumbai Based company named Spice PR owned by Prabhat Choudhary.

Dangal is the first Indian film to gross $300 million worldwide, and one of the top 30 highest-grossing 2016 films. Dangal is also the highest-grossing sports film, and Disney's fourth highest-grossing film of 2017. Dangal is also the first Indian film to exceed $100 million and ₹1,000 crore overseas, grossing around ₹1,459 crore (US$224.04 million) in overseas markets by June 2017.

### Controversy

There was political controversy upon Dangal's release in India. In November 2015, Khan expressed the feelings that he and Kiran had about growing intolerance in India, which led to Khan facing intense backlash for the comments, including violent threats. As part of continued backlash against Khan's comments, there were calls for protests and boycotts against Dangal. In October 2016, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) called for protests against the film. Following its release in December 2016, #BoycottDangal was trending on Twitter, and BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya called for protests against the film.

There was also controversy over its release in Pakistan. In response to the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) banning Pakistani film artists and technicians from working in Indian films, Pakistani theatre owners and exhibitors responded by temporarily putting a stop to screening Indian films. Due to Khan's popularity, however, Dangal was set to release in Pakistan, but the Central Board of Film Censors demanded that scenes featuring the Indian flag and Indian national anthem be omitted. Khan refused, and thus the film was not released in Pakistan, where it was predicted to gross up to ₹12 crore (US$1.79 million).