Chak De! India

About the film

Chak De! India (transl. Let's go! India – transl. Go! India) is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language sports drama film directed by Shimit Amin, written by Jaideep Sahni and produced by Aditya Chopra under the banner of Yash Raj Films. The film stars Shah Rukh Khan as Kabir Khan, the former captain of the India men's national field hockey team. After a disastrous loss to Pakistan, Khan is ostracized from the sport owing to religious prejudice. 7 years later in an attempt to redeem himself, he becomes the coach of the India women's national field hockey team, with the goal of turning its 16 contentious players into an award-winning team.

Sahni was inspired by the women's national field hockey team's win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games to develop Chak De! India's script after reading about it in a newspaper. The screenplay was fictional and the characters, while inspired by the real team and coaches, were invented by Sahni. Kabir Khan's struggles bore resemblance to those faced by real-life hockey player Mir Ranjan Negi, although Sahni was unaware of Negi's tribulations while writing the script. On the suggestion of Maharaj Krishan Kaushik, then coach of the women's hockey team, Sahni invited Negi to join the film's production team. A combination of professional players and actors were cast as the sixteen team members; workshops were conducted for training the actors in hockey and the players in acting. Kaushik and Negi would train Sahni, Khan and the other cast members over a period of six months. The sports scenes were choreographed by Rob Miller, and the soundtrack was composed by Salim–Sulaiman, with lyrics written by Sahni.

Plot

During the final minutes of a Hockey World Cup match in Delhi, India trails Pakistan 1–0. Indian team captain Kabir Khan misses a crucial penalty stroke, costing India the match. Soon after, the media circulates a photograph of Khan shaking hands with the Pakistani captain. The sporting gesture is severely misinterpreted as an act of sympathy towards Pakistan, and rampant religious prejudice forces a disgraced Khan and his mother to flee their ancestral home in exile.

Seven years later, Uttam Singh, a field hockey advocate, convinces the skeptical head of the Indian hockey association, Mr. Tripathi, to appoint Khan as the head coach of the neglected Indian women's national field hockey team. Khan takes charge of a fractured roster of 16 young women plagued by regional biases and interpersonal rivalries. Komal Chautala from Haryana continuously clashes with Preeti Sabarwal from Chandigarh; the short-tempered Balbir Kaur from Punjab bullies teammates Rani Dispotta and Soimoi Kerketa from rural Jharkhand; and Northeast Indian players Mary Ralte and Molly Zimik face systemic racial discrimination. Furthermore, team captain Vidya Sharma struggles with domestic pressure from her husband's family to abandon the sport, while Preeti's fiancé, national cricket vice-captain Abhimanyu Singh, routinely belittles her hockey career.

Khan realizes that tactical skill is useless without team unity. He enforces strict discipline, benching veteran player Bindiya Naik for refusing to cooperate. In retaliation, Bindiya manipulates the team into rebelling against Khan's authority, prompting his resignation. However, during a farewell lunch at a restaurant, a group of local men sexually harass Mary. Balbir retaliates, triggering a massive brawl where the entire team unites to fight off the harassers. Recognizing that the women have finally acted as a cohesive unit, Khan prevents the restaurant staff from intervening. Impressed by his underlying intentions, the players apologize and request Khan to remain their coach.

Production

A brief article about the victorious women's team at the 2002 Commonwealth Games inspired screenwriter Jaideep Sahni to create a film about the Indian women's hockey team, and he modelled Kabir Khan on hockey coach Maharaj Krishan Kaushik. After listening to the storyline Kaushik suggested that Sahani meet hockey player Mir Ranjan Negi, who faced accusations of throwing the match against Pakistan in the 1982 Asian Games. Shah Rukh Khan stated in a speech delivered at the University of Edinburgh that the phrase Chak De! was originally "an inspirational martial cry that Sikh soldiers used while lifting logs in order to make bridges across rivers on their campaigns against their enemies. It implies the will to get up and get on with it."

According to Sahni, he was unaware of Negi's plight while he wrote the script and any resemblance to Negi's life was coincidental. Negi agreed, saying that he did not "want to hog the limelight. This movie is not a documentary of Mir Ranjan Negi's life. It is in fact the story of a team that becomes a winning lot from a bunch of hopeless girls". Responding to media reports equating Kabir Khan with Negi, Sahni said: "Our script was written a year and a half back. It is very unfortunate that something, which is about women athletes, has just started becoming about Negi."

Although Salman Khan was initially considered for the lead role, he ultimately declined because the film "was not my genre at that point in time...it was a more serious kind of film and I was doing more of a commercial kind of cinema." Shah Rukh Khan (who had originally declined due to a scheduling conflict with Karan Johar's Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and Farhan Akhtar's Don) was later confirmed as Kabir Khan. Khan accepted the role partly because he used to play hockey in college. Some media sources called the actor's role offbeat, since it departed from his usual romantic image and included neither lip synched songs nor a single female lead.

Key details