PAANCH- a hit movie without being released!

PAANCH could be the only movie to have the distinction of being a hit without being released. Anurag Kashyap's earliest of ventures this movie is a very well made one but thr irony is that it never got through the clutches of censor. It has been stopped from release on six accounts and one of them is violence. I have seen the movie (thanks to internet) and it is certainly less violent than a 'Shaitan' which also follows the similar theme.

As an avid movie fan, it is quite saddening to see that movie will never be released for the mass audiences. The cast and crew of the movie is crowded with extremely talented people. Vishal Bhardwaj composed the path breaking soundtrack for the movie "main khuda" can easily be hailed as the first rock song of the Hindi cinema even 'emotional atyachar (rock version)' came out  nearly after  8 years. The female version of Main Khuda is also an exceptional song sung by none other than Sunidhi Chauhan. The other songs are also good listening like Asha Bhosle sung 'Jism Hai'.

Kay Kay Menon is now known as a solid actor but those days no one knew him, his first shot of fame was 'Bhopal Express' which was not seen by lot of people despite of being a fantastic movie. Kay Kay played an auto rickshaw driver in that movie hence him being the protagonist of this movie was a surprise but after watching the movie one cannot stop saying as "what a performance!". 

All actors have been superb, Tejaswini flourishes in as Shiuli. I find it very difficult to digest as how come such a talented and good looking actress falied to make a mark at box office. All this can be attributed to fate as who knows where Kolhapure must have been had the movie got released in 2002!

The co actors of movie Aditya Shrivastva (CID fame), Vijay Maurya (Pondi) and Joy Fernandes to have done the justice with their roles. Coming back to Anurag, the direction is crisp, movie goes very fast and grips you. He always works with same set of people more or less and get the maximum out of them. The movie makes you think and when a movie does that then director has succeded in his aim.

The plot of the movie was based aroud the 'Joshi-Abhyankar' murder during 76-77. This story is of a band called 'Parasites' which has four members in it and the lead singer is Shiuli. Luke (Kay Kay) acts like Godfather to the rest and takes all the decisions by himself. They want to be famous but do not have enough money to get their songs recorded. They hatch a plan to kidnap a colleague and get ransom from his father but the plan goes awry and they get sucked into the vicious circle of violence. The plot does take some unexpected twists and turns and keeps you captivating.

The movie is worth watching but it is only available on torrents as it has not been cleared for either home or cinema release which is a bit of irony!