Arjun: The Warrior Prince

<p>The story is based on the early life of , loosely taken from the ancient . The storyline begins with as a nine-year-old boy and follows him until he grows into the that the world knows him as. It explores his life with his brothers in , his training and education, and his ultimate discovery of the warrior within himself. The film begins with , the young prince of (Kingdom of King ), asking a maid ( ) to tell him a story. The maid narrates him the story of . She tells him that Arjun was a student of and that he learned the art of warfare from him. He was more skilled than all the students of Drona. None of his own brothers nor his cousins – the hundred – could equal him in the art. and the other Kauravas despised the , for they feared that they might usurp Duryodhana’s throne. When the king grew older, the rivalry between his sons, the and the , intensified. Twice, Duryodhana attempted to kill all the Pandavas but failed. To avoid further conflict, proclaimed Duryodhana as the crown prince of and asked to be the king of a distant, unkempt territory of the empire. In the meantime, Arjun won a and married the daughter of the King of Panchala, . Duryodhana, who loathed the Pandavas, hatched a conspiracy with his uncle and won all that belonged to the Pandavas in a betting game called . After losing everything, Yudhishthira betted his own brothers, Draupadi, and even himself. Draupadi was insulted in front of everyone, but Arjuna could not say anything because Yudhishthira was the king, and the king’s words are the last words. The Pandavas, according to the rules of the game, had to go into exile for twelve years and an agyatavasa (hiding) for one year. While all the Pandavas go one way, Arjuna travels north to do . Before leaving, makes him promise that he will take revenge for her insult. He then leaves and does , during which he earns a bow from the Lord . The story then shifts back to the present-day Viratnagar. It is revealed that the Pandavas are spending their secret exile, or ‘agyatavasa’, there and are noticed by some of the spies of Duryodhana. According to the outcome of the game, if any one of the Pandavas is found before the end of that one year, the Pandavas will have to again go for a twelve-year exile. The spy informs Duryodhana that the Pandavas are in Viratnagar. So he launches an attack on Viratnagar with the help of his bandit friends. The king of Viratnagar leaves to thrash the marauding bandits. However, that is the bait. From the other direction, Duryodhana’s army comes, and it seems that the young prince of Viratnagar is the only one who is left to fight. Uttar’s maid drives the young prince’s chariot to the field, but the prince, distraught by the number of enemies, flees. The maid stops him and reveals her true identity: Brihannala comes out as Arjun. Arjun retrieves his bow and makes prince Uttar drive his chariot. The warrior massacres the army and emerges victorious, and at last, Arjuna alone defeats all Kaurava warriors, including Bhisma and Drona. Animation for the film is provided by . According to Chaudhary, “When UTV pitched the idea of ‘Arjun’ to me, I was thrilled. I had trained in animation at years back. My writer Rajesh Devraj and I started developing the story and pooled in talent from NID for everything from character design to costume design. We eventually had a team of 300 professionals including those from Tata Elxsi.” Chaudhary told , ” We took a theatre group that is run by and and did the whole voiceover in the form of a play. As a result, what you get is people interacting with each other and lending their voices to the characters in my film instead of dubbing them from separate booths.” And “for the action, we did a two-week workshop with a troupe from Kerala and a troupe from Manipur — both of which represent very diverse martial art forms. We put them together on a mountaintop for two weeks and made them fight each other. What we got were results that I wouldn’t even hope to achieve if I was using live-action actors.” Distributed and released by and , the soundtrack of is composed by with lyrics by , while Dhruv Ghanekar composed the background score. The film was released in India on 25 May 2012. In United States, held a week-long limited engagement on 1 September 2012 at the to qualify for consideration. However, the film was not nominated. On the website , 67% of 9 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.7/10. Anuj Kumar of gave the film 4 out of 5, calling it “a world class show with a good old Indian touch”. of gave the film 3 stars out of 5, concluding that “I’m going to with three out of five for . Like its hero, the film too is a valiant effort, and an interesting interpretation of a much-loved mythological story. Worth a watch”. Robert Abele of gave the film 3 out of 5 stars stating “The animation is at times stiff and presentational, like a rushed rotoscoping job, but there’s a charming majesty to the enterprise”. Coversely, Rachel Saltz of gave the film 2 out of 5, writing, “An action movie, ‘Arjun’ takes story liberties, but not always in the service of clarity. (The script is by Rajesh Devraj.) Children will probably be confused, and adults familiar with the tale may wonder where all the good bits went.” of gave the film 2 out of 5, writing, “Even though the title character vaguely resembles Disney’s , nobody is going to mistake the less-than-state-of-the-art, computer-game-style 2-D animation for the work of the American parent, much less its subsidiary.” The film earned 24.4 million worldwide against the budget of 75 million. An was released for to accompany the film’s release by . In December 2012, Arnab Chaudhari announced a sequel to the film was in the works. He further stated that “It will take about three years to complete the film.” However, the film was never completed and Disney shut down UTV Motion Pictures in 2017.</p>