Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2003


Paanch

Buy Paanch now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'Paanch' (English: 'Five') is a 2003 Indian crime thriller film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap, starring Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Srivastava, Vijay Maurya, Joy Fernandes and Tejaswini Kolhapure. The film is "loosely" based on the 197677 Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders in Pune.

The film never got a theatrical or home-video release. The Central Board of Film Certification objected to the film's violence, the depiction of drug abuse and bad language. After some cuts, the film was cleared in 2003. However, it could not be released as the producer faced problems. It then was made available through torrent websites. The film was later screened in several film festivals.

Plot



Four friends; Luke (Kay Kay Menon), Murgi (Aditya Shrivastava), Joy (Joy Fernandes) and Pondy (Vijay Maurya), play together in a band along with a fifth female member named Shiuli (Tejaswini Kolhapure). They are self-destructing youngsters. Luke, the lead singer and self-imposed leader of the pack ensures his dominance in the group by providing accommodation, drugs, and food for his wasted and broke friends. Pondy is fascinated by Shiuli who sleeps with rich guys for money. The movie revolves around a kidnapping plot gone wrong, in which the four male band members plan to kidnap another friend Nikhil (Pankaj Saraswat). Nikhil is part of the plot and agrees to get himself kidnapped to extract money out of his rich but miser father. In the process, excess of drugs and uncontrolled anger leads to the murder of Nikhil by Luke. Luke blackmails all others and ensures that nobody leaves or confides into the cops. Meanwhile, Shiuli also gets entangled in the plot. The money hungry youngsters then go on to kill the father of Nikhil and a cop (Sharat Saxena) investigating the murder. The plot thickens with a set of betrayal and counter-betrayal leading to an interesting end.

Cast



* Kay Kay Menon as Luke Morrison

* Aditya Srivastava as Murgi

* Vijay Maurya as Pondy

* Joy Fernandes as Joy

* Tejaswini Kolhapure as Shiuli

* Sharat Saxena as Inspector Deshpande

* Pankaj Saraswat as Nikhil Ranjan

* Vijay Raaz as Anish Ranjan

Soundtrack



The soundtrack of the film features music composed by Vishal Bhardwaj and lyrics written by Abbas Tyrewala. The album was released by BMG Crescendo in May 2002, and marked the entry of the music publisher into the Hindi film music market.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120307074844/http://cricket.expressindia.com/old/fulliestory.php?content_id=45233 BMG Crescendo Makes A Debut In Hindi Film Music]

Production



In September 1993, while Kashyap stayed at the St. Xavier's Boys Hostel, he used to hang out with Adam Avil, Eddie Avil, Luke Kenny and Ulysses Veyra the members of a bandGreek (later Pralay). He took copious notes on how they lead their livesforty pages of a small notebook, and began writing the script"in bits and pieces"for a film that he called 'Mirage' but which would later become 'Paanch.' Kashyap had seen ex-VJ Luke Kenny in a Vikram Kapadia play, and approached him with an incomplete script, but nothing came out of it.[http://chavannichap.blogspot.com/2008/11/0-1993-0-0-0-1993-0-1995-0-0-0-0-0-0.html The 'Pahli Seedi'] Anurag Kashyap Interview Excerpts from the interview (in Hindi) conducted by Pravesh Bhardwaj and Ajay Brahmatmaj[http://www.financialexpress.com/news/audacious-irreverent-yet-refreshingly-original/177107/0 Audacious, irreverent, yet refreshingly original] Later on, while working with Nair, he came across files related to the Joshi-Abhyankar Serial Murders that took place in Pune in 1976.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120426125203/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2001-08-10/delhi/27232804_1_board-of-film-certification-hindi-film-abhyankar Total Knockout: A Censor Punch For Paanch]

He had also seen a film, 'Fun', about two mentally unstable girls murdering an elderly woman. And 'Paanch' was ready to be made into a film. Kashyap says

Film festival premiere



Paanch was screened at Filmfest Hamburg in 2003, Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema as closing film in 2005, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2006 and at Jagran Film Festival in 2016.

References




Buy Paanch now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 2003



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1096004469.