Mabuhay Bollywood: Delivering a knock out punch with Mary Kom

The first ever Indian Film Festival, billed as Mabuhay Bollywood, made a splashy debut at the Shangri-La Plaza's Red Carpet with a lineup of 10 films which is very impressive for an inaugural edition.

With a varied selection ranging from romantic comedies to epic fantasies, what better way to introduce Filipinos to Bollywood/Indian films than a biopic about a boxer whose life somewhat parallels one of the most popular Filipinos worldwide.

Mary Kom

Directed by Omung Kumar, Mary Kom is a biographical boxing flick about the Indian boxer Chungneijang Mary Kom Hmangte, better known as Mary Kom, who won the World Amateur Boxing championships six times to date and was also an Olympic bronze medalist. The film follows the titular character's rise to the top of her sport while dealing with numerous struggles like being an ethnic minority, a woman and a mother, and not surprisingly, being at the mercy of corrupt sport officials.

Watching the film gave me a chance to learn more not just about Mary Kom and the actress who portrayed her, but also about a few aspects of Indian life as well.

First of all, Mary Kom, gained prominence in India as an amateur boxer winning world titles and Olympic bronze. She later on was nominated to be a member of the Parliament in India. The striking similarities between the trajectory of her life and career and that of Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao is quite obvious.

I learned that Priyanka Chopra is actually a superstar in India. She was crowned Miss World in 2000 and she never looked back since then starring in numerous films and also becoming UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and UN Peace Ambassador. So she is definitely more than just Nick Jonas' wife.

Mary Kom also shed light on the ethnic minorities in Manipur, India which I wasn't aware of before seeing the film. It opened my eyes about the various states and territories of India and how truly diverse this country is. 

I appreciate how the film showed Mary Kom in a not so nice light like when she lost her composure when her comeback to the sport didn't come as easy as she thought. It also showed the corruption in sporting federations wherein the officials live the privileged life while the athletes doing all the hard work and eventually bringing in the glory almost have to beg to have decent training conditions.

What surprised me most about Mary Kom was that it didn't feature the usual song and dance numbers that Bollywood films are known for. But it doesn't mean that the movie didn't have a knock out soundtrack. The soundtrack, made up of seven original songs by the duo of Shashi Suman and Shivam, also marked the debut of Priyanka Chopra's Hindi playback singing with Chaoro (Lori).

Too bad that I wasn't able to check out the rest of the films during the very limited, just one weekend run of Mabuhay Bollywood. I hope that this festival will turn into an annual affair since it is very unlikely that they will run out of films to be screened since India is the most prolific film producing nation in the world.

Mabuhay Bollywood, an Indian Film Festival was presented by the Embassy of India, the Film Development Council of the Philippines, and the Shangri-La Plaza.