Chak De! India

Chak De! India is new wave Bollywood at its best, a Hindi-language film from a Mumbai studio that shows the influence of American and foreign films. It has none of what film critic Peter Rainer has called the ”Busby Beserkley” dance numbers, and there isn’t any boy-girl romance. Rather, India is a sports movie – something of a cross between Bend It Like Beckham and A League of Their Own – about a disgraced coach (Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan) who leads an Indian girls’ field hockey team toward a World Cup. – –technical credits are first rate with excellent cinematography, quicksilver editing, musical montages of practice and a fine use of locations. India is defi nitely Bollywood, ashamed of neither sentimentality nor predictability. Yet its sharp-eyed view of Indian society makes for a world of difference from old-style, sugar-coated Bollywood films.
– KIRK HONEYCUTT, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER