Ganapath

About the film

Ganapath: A Hero is Born is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language dystopian sports action film written and directed by Vikas Bahl, who also produced the film in association with Jackky Bhagnani, Vashu Bhagnani and Deepshikha Deshmukh. It stars Tiger Shroff in a dual role alongside Kriti Sanon, Elli AvrRam and Rahman, while Amitabh Bachchan appears in a cameo appearance.

The film was announced in November 2020 and underwent a long, heavy pre-production stage. Principal photography commenced in November 2021 and wrapped up in February 2023 with filming taking place in United Kingdom, Ladakh and Mumbai.

Plot

In the year 2070, a destructive war leaves the world divided by a towering wall, with the rich people residing in a city called Silver City led by the Dalini, while the poor people survive in a destroyed city and struggle for basic necessities as it is controlled by Silver City.

Meanwhile, Guddu resides in the Silver City and works for Dalini's henchmen John, who conducts boxing matches and earns money through the bets placed by the rich people. One day, John tells Guddu to take Dimple, John's girlfriend, to a nightclub as he is busy with a meeting. Dimple gets physical with Guddu, where John catches them red-handed and buries them alive. Guddu miraculously survives and Kaizad asks him to move away to the city of poor people and meet Shiva, a combat trainer.

Guddu learns that he is actually Ganapath, a legendary saviour of the poor people, as predicted by Maharishi Dalapathi. Guddu receives combat training under Shiva and his confidante Jassi, where he ultimately embraces himself as Ganapath and deceives John, Dalini and their henchmen into believing that he is on their side. Trained as an accomplished fighter, Guddu wins matches for them, while pretending to Jassi and Shiva that he is uninterested in their cause.

Production

The film was announced on 6 November 2020 by Pooja Entertainment, to be directed by Aditya Kumar starring Tiger Shroff. It was originally supposed to release in parts, and had a working title of Ganapath: Part 1, though this plan was abandoned and the film was re-titled Ganapath: A Hero is Born. Though a sequel is still teased at the ending of the film titled Ganapath: Part 2: Rise of the Hero. The film marks the collaboration of Sanon and Shroff after nine years since their Hindi film debut in Heropanti (2014). It was produced by Pooja Entertainment in association of GoodCo.

The principal photography began on 2 November 2021 in United Kingdom. In May 2022, the final schedule was held in Ladakh with some additional scenes being shot in February 2023. The film's shooting was wrapped up by August 2023.

Soundtrack

The music of the film is composed by Vishal Mishra, Amit Trivedi, White Noise Studios and Dr. Zeus. The background score is composed by Salim-Sulaiman. The first single titled "Jai Ganesha" was released on 18 September 2023 on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. The second single titled "Hum Aaye Hain" was released on 5 October 2023. On 13 October 2023, the entire album consisting was released by Zee Music Company.

Release

The film was initially supposed to release on 23 December 2022, coinciding with Christmas Eve, but was later postponed and was released theatrically on 20 October 2023, during Dussehra, in Hindi, along with the dubbed versions in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada languages.

Reception

Ganapath received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 18% of 11 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The film received negative reviews from audiences.

Bollywood Hungama gave 2.5/5 stars and wrote "Ganapath – A Hero is Born fails to impress due to a clichéd storyline, poor VFX and predictable second half." Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India gave 2.5/5 stars and wrote "In a world where the rich are getting richer and poor, poorer, Ganapath imitates our hard-hitting reality but feels like a huge potential wasted."

Avinash Lohana of Pinkvilla gave 2/5 stars and wrote "This futuristic drama headlined by Tiger Shroff and Kriti Sanon needed to do some solid work in the past before bringing it to the audience." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave 1.5/5 stars and wrote "Ganapath is painfully pea-brained pulp that makes a meal of a terribly thin storyline."

Key details