YRF Entertainment’s first-ever OTT project – ‘The Railway Men’ web series, which is based on the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, is all set to start streaming on the Netflix OTT platform from Saturday onwards. As you know, the show is set against the backdrop of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The basic plot revolves around the courageous efforts of a group of railway workers, who try their best to save lives after the unfortunate incident. It features R. Madhavan, Kay Key Menon, Divyenndu, and Babil Khan, amongst others.
And in case you’re wondering whether ‘The Railway Men’ is the first on-screen portrayal of the unfortunate Bhopal Gas Tragedy, then let us tell you that it’s not the first.
You’ll be surprised to know that one of the lead actors of ‘The Railway Men’ web series Kay Kay Menon had also featured in a movie based on the Bhopal Disaster. And the movie’s name is ‘Bhopal Express’, which was released in the year 1999. It also featured Naseeruddin Shah, Nethra Raghuraman, Zeenat Aman, and Vijay Raaz. The film’s story was about a newly married couple and how their lives are suddenly upturned after the 1984 disaster.
Not just ‘Bhopal Express’, there is another film which revolves around the subject of and that is ‘Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain’. The film came out in 2014 (30 years after the tragedy) and featured Martin Sheen as the Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson. The movie’s plot followed a rickshaw puller, who gets a job at the infamous chemical plant and how various lives were affected after the disaster struck in December 1984. The movie also featured Rajpal Yadav, Kal Penn, and Satish Kaushik in important roles.
Both the aforementioned films namely ‘Bhopal Express’ and ‘Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain’ received decent feedback from critics, although they were not box-office successes. Sadly, they are not streaming on any Indian OTT platform as of now. Now, let’s see whether the upcoming Netflix series ‘The Railway Men’ will attract viewers and impress OTT audiences in a big way or not.