City of Joy (1992)

Hazari Pal lives in a small village in Bihar, India, with his dad, mom, wife, Kamla, daughter, Amrita, and two sons, Shambhu and Manooj. As the Pal are unable to repay the loan they had ... See full summary »

Director:

Roland Joffé

Writers:

Dominique Lapierre (book), Mark Medoff (screenplay)

Stars:

Patrick Swayze, Om Puri, Pauline Collins

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Patrick Swayze	...	Max Lowe
Om Puri	...	Hazari Pal
Pauline Collins	...	Joan Bethel
Shabana Azmi	...	Kamla H. Pal
Ayesha Dharker	...	Amrita H. Pal
Santu Chowdhury	...	Shambu H. Pal
Imran Badsah Khan	...	Manooj H. Pal
Art Malik	...	Ashok Ghatak
Nabil Shaban	...	Anouar
Debatosh Ghosh	...	Ram Chander
Suneeta Sengupta	...	Poomina
Mansi Upadhyay	...	Meeta
Shyamanand Jalan	...	Ghatak - Godfather
Shyamal Sengupta	...	Gangooly - Con man
Rudraprasad Sengupta	...	Chomotkar

Storyline

Hazari Pal lives in a small village in Bihar, India, with his dad, mom, wife, Kamla, daughter, Amrita, and two sons, Shambhu and Manooj. As the Pal are unable to repay the loan they had taken years ago from a moneylender, their land and property are auctioned, and they are rendered homeless. Hazari and his family re-locate to Calcutta with hopes of starting life anew, save some money and go back to Bihar, as well as get Amrita married. Things do not go as planned, as they lose their entire savings to a con-man, Gangooly, who took their money as rent by pretending to be a landlord. Then Hazari gets an opportunity to take up driving a rickshaw manually through a local godfather, Ghatak. He gets to meet a American, Dr. Max Lowe, and together they strike up a friendship along with a local social worker, Joan Bethel. Misunderstandings crop up between Joan and the Godfather, resulting in the shutting down of their shanty medical clinic. When Hazari sides with Joan, his rickshaw is taken ...

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Plot Keywords:

leper | india | hope | protection racket | hospital | 

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Taglines:

True heroism lies in the quality of the struggle.

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for scenes of brief strong violence

Details

Country:

France UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 April 1992 (USA)

Also Known As:

La cité de la joie

Filming Locations:

Calcutta, West Bengal, India

Box Office

Budget:

$27,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$14,683,921 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Allied Filmmakers, Lightmotive, Pricel

Technical Specs

Runtime:

132 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Indian writer 'Sunil Gandopadhyay' - a former collaborator of Satyajit Ray - was brought on board to help with the script's authenticity. This also acted as a seal of approval for the Indian authorities who will only allow foreign productions to film on the continent if they contain significant Indian input.

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Quotes

Hasari Pal: Godfather has more eyes than a pineapple!

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Connections

Referenced in Animaniacs: Video Review/When Mice Ruled the Earth (1993)

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Soundtracks

Original folk score
Richard Blackford

User Reviews

only a father will understand

A movie that will carry you to a new place & a new culture you will carry your tears, anger & hope along till the end watching it. The smell of the Indian dust, The pain of the people, The discrepancy between even the poor, A story about a man running to provide the food for his family beside saving money to marry his daughter. A lot of high temper feelings & emotions, you cant stop your eyes from falling. beside talking about the unjust of human beens in isolating a group of innocent people who their fault is that they are not born in complete bodies, the white man in the story who is a doctor failed in the medicine job in his country and ran to India where he found his real soul also show us how we sometimes see the world from one view while it can be seen from a better view, I don't understand why it wasn't dominated for an Oscar. excuse my English & thanks for reading my view.