User Reviews

I saw this movie today and it was definitely worth it! This is undoubtedly the best animated movie to have been made in India so far. The story is well written and keeps you hooked through out...I can say that because when the screen had "INTERMISSION" written across it, I was like, 'already'?..I was that engrossed. I have always been disappointed at the state of animation in India and this movie was like a fresh breeze. The movie has been directed well and some of the scenes are especially commendable...like the one (spoiler) where Arjun shoots the goldfish and the fight scene between Guru Drona and Arjun.(end of spoiler) The dialogs are also well written- the jokes aren't lame and the language not too heavy as is usually in the case of mythological movies. The music and sound effects are good too. However, the end was a little abrupt or shall we say, a little rough around the edges. But it does not damage the overall effect too much. All in all, the movie is a good watch and the kids will love it. Definitely a good way to spend 2 hours!

The movie 'Arjun: The warrior prince' is confused, its neither for kids nor is it for adults. And for a movie based on the greatest warrior on earth, it fails to capture the richness of the character. For me, this movie didn't work mainly due to not-so-good animation, truncation of characters and deviations from the original Mahabharata. Let me point out the details...

Characters: Mahabharata has always been about the characters and their intertwined relationships. But this movie fails miserably in this aspect. Agreed that the movie is based on Arjuna, but that doesn't mean that the other characters could be tweaked at will. Characterization of Arjuna himself is pathetic and deviates too much from the epic. In the original epic, Arjuna is a master archer, who picks the Bow-arrow as his favorite weapon, and surpasses all at a very tender age of 18. He is the one who masters shooting arrows in the dark, and obtains the best of weapons for his worth. In the movie though, he is not able to summon up courage to fight or wage war until eternity... Here, Arjuna appears too weak as a warrior and his skills are almost nonexistent.

There is no respite for other characters as well. Krishna, Bhishma, and Karna combined get a screen time of may be 5 minutes or so. And Bhima, that strongest and smartest warrior is used as a comic relief! Susharman, who is supposed to be king of a state is shown to be a animal-like wanderer of forest, with a bunch of thugs for his company. Yet, the award for worst characterization would go to Shakuni, who rides a pony to lead a war!! (unintentional laughs at best!). And oh well, Ashwatthama is absent from the cast, I wonder how Drona will be killed if there is a sequel!

Animation: Animation of the human movements was jittery for most part and the physical attributes of warriors are not proportionate. In the final battle scene, when Arjun fights with Duryodhan, the latter actually looks twice the size of the former; which gives it a 'cartoonish' feel. There are a few scenes which are done better, like the swayamvar scene.

And finally... The deviations from the original epic. Uncountable, but here are a few. (1) The famous bow of Arjuna is not even named in the movie! In the epic, Arjuna and the Gandiva bow are synonymous in battlefield. (2) How Arjuna learns to shoot-down targets in the dark is absent. For a movie solely based on Arjuna, this should have been included. (3) The scene of Rangbhoomi is done ordinarily and fails to capture the enmity between Karna and Pandavas. Here again, Arjuna seems to be a timid boy, but in the epic, he was already the most skilled and courageous warrior by then. In the epic, Superiority of Arjuna is highlighted by victory over Drupad, (father of Draupadi), which is not mentioned even verbally. (4) In the epic, in the Varnavat episode, it is Bhima who saves Pandavas from the burning palace. In the movie though, the pandavas are saved accidentally. Whats the need to truncate the elder brother's feats?? (5) The scene where Arjuna says 'This is the first time I have seen a person killed' is ridiculous. At this point, in the epic, Arjuna himself has taken part and won many battles!! (6) The movie does not mention any mythical weaponry which enables Arjuna to fight with an entire army single-handed. In fact, the very purpose of Arjuna going to Mount Kailash is to obtain these divine weapons. (7) Arjuna's journey to north and marriages are not mentioned at all. (8) The swayamvar scene is highly truncated, with no mentions of Kauravas who attended the same, and also the battle that ensues between Arjuna and Karna at the end of swayamvar (in which Arjuna defeats Karna). (9) The battle of Virata, which is the climatic scene in the movie, is the most ridiculous of them all. In the epic, this the book in which the jaw-dropping duels between each of Kaurava commander with Arjuna takes place, and Arjuna defeats all of them one-by-one. The duels are fought with bow and arrow with special arrows attacking and counter-attacking each other... In the movie though, the duels are fought by mini swords :) and to top it, Drona gains upper hand over Arjuna for no reason what-so- ever. Someone uninitiated would find it hard to accept Arjuna as the greatest warrior at this point. The other duels are not shown and finally Arjuna defeats Duryodhana. This is again ridiculous. As, Arjuna is always considered way stronger than Duryodhana (in fighting other than with mace), so no point in this battle. His true battles are with Karna, Ashwatthama, Bhishma and Drona, for they are the only ones with some chance of success against him!

I could go on and on but I need to stop and return to work now... My opinion- Stay away from this movie if you are interested in the epic; an in case you want another action with Kung-fu sequences, there are many better Hollywood alternatives!

I really, really wanted to like this film. There are parts of it that are very charmingly animated, but it falls flat on the whole because the writers were trying to squeeze too much story into too little time.

A lot of the scene switches are choppy or abrupt, and aside from Arjun no one really has any personality. (Unless you count "evil" as a personality.) Many characters are flattened, notably Karna.

I feel like this movie had the potential to be truly great. It certainly looks better than any live action adaptation so far.

The movie has so many flaws in the story, characters, dialogs, etc that the list is endless. But still I will point out a few. 1. The meaning of punchline "Yato Dharma Tato Jaya" shown is wrong. It Dharma doesn't mean Truth but Righteousness (i.e. doing what is Right), It's shown by action, not words. 2. Arjuna's rivalry was not much with Duryodhana, it was Bheema who had always in loggerheads with Duryodhana. 3. The movie hardly showed any skills of Arjuna properly. 4. Arjuna was known for his prowess in bow-arrow, but he was seen fighting with sword. (Each Pandava was master of one of the weapons) 5. The characters of Bhishma, Drona, Yudhishthira, and most of the characters were far from that in the original Mahabharata. 6. It was not Arjuna but Bheema who had promised Draupadi to avenge her by killing all the Kaurava brothers (and Bheema killed them all)

As I said, the list is endless and it was so pathetic that I couldn't watch it end-to-end without skipping some of the parts. Worst thing is it depicted a very wrong picture/story of the Mahabharata and it's characters. Sad that the Indian directors(s) spoiled such a great epic of all times.

It's okay. Typical Disney style animation. Familiar with story, just an other pagan myth that never happened, like Hercules. Not really for kid's.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

What put me off in this movie was the deviation of the movie's story from the actual epic. I simply failed to understand how the Director (Arnab Chaudhuri) & Writers ( Rajesh Devraj & R.D. Tailang) imagined that they could walk away with multiple deviations from the actual epic. I am pretty sure this movie was not intended for the Indian audience. I grew up watching Mahabharat on TV & read through agyaat vaas during my schooling - which are purely based on the original scriptures. Most recently I read through the work of Devdutt Pattanaik - "Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata" - though its a retelling of the original story, Devdutt sticks to the main plot & retells of what he think could have happened.

But our story here is mile miles away from the epic story. My Apologies for the spoiler, but that's the fact.

Pro's: 1) Great animation work. 2) Good sound track. 3) Richness of colors & textures used while depicting Indraprastha.

Con's: 1) Story line is far away from the actual epic at many many points. 2) Story narration.

I was really looking forward to movie and I must say I enjoyed the movie. But, the end of this movie - the battle of Viraat was really really poorly done.

A man, standing alone in front of mighty army of hastinapur is no joke. Not just that, he WON that battle. You guys didn't show anything of that! Wow, simply arjun outperforming duryodhan - thats not what actually happened.

Alone, single handedly he defeated ENTIRE hastinapur army with the devine weapons. If that was shown, wow, this would have created that mighty experience of this bravest warrior in front of our eyes.

Quality of animation, story narration etc. was so powerful.. yet the writer somehow didn't understood glory of this. In my opinion, this is even better than actual mahabharat war. Because Arjun was ALONE here.

Sigh. An opportunity wasted.