The Queen of Jhansi: 2017 could be written off as a year studded with failures for the very talented Kangana Ranaut. 2017 kicked off for her with the period drama Rangoon where she played the role of Julia, an actress and stuntwoman in the mid-1900s along with Shahid Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan. The actress even learned horse riding and sword fighting for this role and had performed all the stunts in the movie herself. Though the movie failed to perform well at the box office due to a weak script, Kangana’s acting received rave reviews from all around as she tried to carry the movie on her shoulders. Her next movie in 2017 was Simran. It was about a Gujrati woman in USA and was loosely based on the life of an NRI in US who was convicted of four bank robberies. The Harshal Mehta directed movie failed to perform even mildly well at the box office owing to a weak script and surprisingly bad acting by Kangana Ranaut.
Kangana Ranaut would now be seen in 2018 swinging a sword as Maharani Laxmibai in her next flick, Mannikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi. It is supposed to be a biographical action movie about Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi and is being directed by Krish, who had also directed ‘Gabbar is back’. The movie is slated to release in April, 2018. Manikarnika was the childhood name of Rani Laxmibai. Her father was a courtier and guru to Peshwa of Bithur. She spent her childhood around the royal family owing to which she learnt horse riding, sword fighting along with reading and writing. In 1842, she was married to Maharaja of Jhansi after his first wife had died.
When the Maharaja himself died in 1853, the East India Company applied the Doctrine of Lapse to Jhansi and tried to annex the territory. This was when Rani Laxmi Bai decided to pick up arms and take part in the mutiny against the British rule. The movie is destined to do well at the box office thanks to the personality it is based on.
5. Junglee
Junglee is an upcoming movie featuring the fit and athletic Vidyut Jammwal. The movie will be directed by the Hollywood director, Chuck Russell. Chuck Russell is well known for his movies like A Nightmare on the Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the fantasy superhero comedy movie, The Mask, the action movie Eraser featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Scorpion King amongst many others. To begin with, Rohan Sippy was scheduled to direct he movie but he was dropped and Chuck Russell was roped in. Since it features Vidyut Jammwal in the starring role, the movie is sure to have tonnes and oodles of action and stunt work. The premise of the movie revolves around elephant poaching and ivory smuggling. It would apparently be an action thriller about the relationship between men and elephants. Vidyut Jammwal is rumoured to be playing the role of a veterinary doctor, who returns to his elephant reserve but finds that an international poachers’ racket has taken over the reserve. He then fights the poachers’ racket and rids the elephants of the danger that has befallen them. The movie has been given a Dussehra 2018 release and would be released on 19th October, 2018. It is being produced under the banner of ‘Junglee Pictures’ who had a stellar 2017 with ‘Bareilly ki Barfi’.
Vidyut Jammwal had a decent 2017 as he reprised his role in the Commander sequel, Commander 2: The Black Money Trail. It was the sequel to Commando: A One Man Army. Adah Sharma starred opposite Vidyut Jammwal in the movie. Esha Gupta had a major role in the movie too. The movie which was all about the action scenes and stunts performed by Vidyut without a body double or hanging ropes was adjudged to be a commercial success at the box office. He played a major role in the Ajay Devgn and Emran Hashmi period heist movie, Badshaaho.
Though the movie got off to a good start, it was not able to sustain it and eventually did not perform as well as it was being expected. There is a huge section of movie watchers who are inclined towards the action genre and Vidyut Jammwal seems to be cleaning the rafters in that genre currently!