With just hours left for the release of war film ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’, it occurred to us that the film should hopefully be able to impress OTT audiences and critics alike, in a way, its Hollywood counterpart and another war movie ‘Pearl Harbor’ failed to achieve two decades back.
Comparisons between these two films ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ and ‘Pearl Harbor’ seem inevitable because the incident related to Pakistani bombers destroying the Bhuj airstrip is regarded by some as India’s own Pearl Harbor moment.
That’s because Michael Bay’s 2001 Hollywood film ‘Pearl Harbor’ (starring Ben Affleck, Josh Harnett, and Kate Beckinsale) narrated the incident of the surprise Japanese attack against the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Eight US Navy battleships were damaged in the attack. The Americans bounced back and six of them were later restored and sent to war. So, the similarities with both these films are rather apparent owing to the surprise nature of the aerial attacks that caught the forces off-guard.
Having said that, although ‘Pearl Harbor’ was a box office success, it received generally negative reviews from the critics regarding multiple aspects. Although it won a technical Academy Award for sound editing, the film was later also nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards (for worst cinematic under-achievements), including Worst Picture. ‘Pearl Harbor’ holds a dismal 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an unimpressive IMDb rating of merely 6.2.
We earnestly hope that ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’, unlike Hollywood’s ‘Pearl Harbor’, would be lauded by critics and equally well received by the OTT audiences as well. ‘Bhuj: The Pride of India’ starring Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt, Sonakshi Sinha, and Sharad Kelkar, etc. is expected to start streaming on the Disney+ Hotstar OTT platform from August 13, 2021, onwards and we hope it can achieve critical acclaim and accolades that ‘Pearl Harbor’ in 2001 couldn’t.
We’re hiring!
We are hiring two full-time junior to mid-level writers with the option to work remotely. You need to work a 5-hour shift and be available to write. Interested candidates should email their sample articles to [email protected]. Applications without a sample article will not be considered.
