The Legend of Drona (2008)

A young man learns he is the latest in line of a dynasty of ancestral warriors dedicated to guarding a mystic source of cosmic energy, and the time has come for him to take the role.

Director:

Goldie Behl

Writers:

Goldie Behl, Rohini Killough (screenplay)

Stars:

Jayshree Arora, Veer Arya, Abhishek Bachchan

Cast

Credited cast:
Jayshree Arora
Veer Arya	...	Aditya's son
Abhishek Bachchan	...	Aditya 'Adi' / Drona
Jaya Bhaduri	...	Rani Jayati (as Jaya Bachchan)
Priyanka Chopra	...	Sonia
Tatána Fischerová	...	Sister Anne
Gaurav Gupta	...	Mighty
Vinay Jain
Karan Veer Mehra	...	(as Karan Mehra)
Kay Kay Menon	...	Riz Raizada
Akhilendra Mishra
Navneet Nishan	...	Aditya's aunt
Conan Stevens	...	Asura - Demon

Storyline

Orphaned, lonely and neglected Aditya grows up in Great Britain, living with his abusive aunt and cousin, Rajesh, and the abuse grows worse after the passing of his uncle. Aditya will soon find out that he is not alone in this world - he has a mother, Rani Jayati; a sweetheart in Sonia; he is watched by angels; and he also has a virtually indestructible arch-enemy - Riz Raizada, who had killed his father, the legendary Drona, to secure the secret of the Amrit Manthan - and is now all set to kill the Rani as well as Aditya himself.

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Plot Keywords:

fight | villain | train | sword | save the world | 

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Taglines:

When the survival of mankind hangs in the balance, one man will rise and realize his destiny.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Fantasy

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Details

Official Sites:

Official Blog Official site

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Release Date:

2 October 2008 (India)

Also Known As:

The Legend of Drona

Filming Locations:

Kuchaman City, Rajasthan, India

Box Office

Budget:

$27,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$237,647 (USA) (3 October 2008)

Gross:

$237,647 (USA) (3 October 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Milk & Honey Pictures, Eros International, Rose Movies

Technical Specs

Runtime:

138 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Shiney Ahuja was approached for Kay Kay Menon's role but rejected it.

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Soundtracks

Oop Cha (Fair Play Mix)
Performed by Sunidhi Chauhan
Composed by Dhruv Ghanekar
Music on Eros

User Reviews

This years Razzies topper!

Dear Goldie, I know you or one of your agents will read these boards to get feedback on the film. So I am addressing this to you personally.

Let me summarise my personal sentiments for your film: it made me cringe, it embarrassed me, it made me laugh at it's stupidity, not a kind of good laugh, more of a laughing with disgust. I was also very bored and waiting for the film to end. Had I not been watching it with family and friends, I would have walked out.

As I am talking to a director I am going to give you feedback on each aspect your film fails on and and suggestions.

STORY: I read in your interview on how this story was so special to you. Perhaps you should have submitted your script to a script doctor before submitting to your producers. It seemed like it was your first draft It was one of the worst scripts I have had the misfortune of seeing recently and I nominate it personally for the Bollywood Razzie awards. Your whole setting is fake and unconvincing; none of your characters are developed; the story is not thought out. You know I seriously got the impression that what you did was watch a few dozen Hollywood fantasy films, pick and mix whatever you liked and made a collage, not a film.

All you did was lift the common Hollywood quest story for immortal elixir, plastered Indian names on it, and called it Indian. Riz Razada seems like a reject from a c-grade Hollywood film. Everything about him, his look, his mannerisms, his lair, his henchmen are completely foreign.

Your super hero is a moping loser. The first thought that came to my mind was when I saw your superhero was, "No, seriously, this Cinderella-man is the superhero" but I gave you a chance. I figured you were going for the loser realised hes special plot. In actual fact it turned out into the superhero with special needs plot. In the beginning he is looked after by a flower petal! He is saved by a woman who has more testoterone than him; in the later parts he turns into a mommy's boy who gets walked over left, right and centre and in the end he get killed - oh and then saved by a dues-ex-machine with him suddenly coming alive again despite being impaled by a sword.

Your superhero was pathetic. A passive pushover that just grunts and makes ugly faces, and to make matters worse looks absolutely ridiculous in his costume, displaying Mr Bachchan in the most unflattering light. He never actually earns any credit as a hero - let alone a superhero.

DIRECTION: If your screenplay deserves a Razzie, so does your direction. You totally destroyed the film.

The excessive and monotonous use of slow motion. It became so frequent it was predictable. Every time the hero appears, cue slow motion and take several shots from every angle of the hero posing with his sword raised making angry faces(which is what the hero ever did) Tacky costumes and sets rejected from a Hollywood film. I don't think you even thought about how UGLY and fake the sets and the costumes looked. They were also very boring and empty. I wondered where were the people in your film, and when you had people such as Rizada's fans, you made them look ridiculous too. Then we also the ridiculous Gandalf-caricature in the end. I know what you were thinking, because it is a fantasy film you can go all-out with the bizarre, but this just betrays what an amateur you are. A fantasy film is not an excuse to make everything look ridiculous. That only reveals your lack of thought that went into making film.

SPECIAL EFFECTS: The special effects are as crude and underdeveloped as everything else in your film. You should have at least got this right, this was your trump card. At least you could have won the tag, "Great special effects, awful film" instead you win the tag, "tacky special effects, awful film" What is worse that despite having such tacky effects you flaunt them. The beginning with Rizada cloning himself looked like it was from an 80's film. The electricity effects looked laughably out of date. Perhaps you should have consulted the SFX technicians on the other Bollywood turkey Love Story 2050, they at least got the electricity effects to decent standards.

The car-chase scene with some cut-in shots of a CGI car looked like they were from an older racing computer game.

The particle effects looked like they were the test version of The Mummy. The sand storm faces in particular were very crude.

Other graphics look decidedly video-game graphics.

You said the special effects had been in post-production for a year and you hired Hollywood technicians. Then why do you such sub-standard results? Did you lack the budget, the experience, the software? Somebody is going to have to explain why the effects were so substandard. Again, why did you have to lift special effects? What is wrong filmmakers of your ilk?

SONGS: I am not going to say too much, they are like everything in your film, awful and misfits.

ACTING: Well, you might have actually destroyed Abhishek Bachchan and Kay and Kay's acting career

In short Golide, don't be surprised if you are nominated and win for nearly every category at the Bollywood Razzies this year. A really pathetic film that would have been rejected by virtually every Hollywood producer even at the script stage. Bollywood producers are going to have become more discerning. Nobody wants to watch such rubbish. I doubt you will get funds for a sequel, this franchise is not going anywhere.