Update of Bengali Movies in the 4th Quarter of 2016

The last quarter of 2016 was the best in terms of business as well as good movies. As there two most favorite festive seasons Durga Puja and Christmas were there in this quarter, so most of the awaited movies were released in this quarter.

Let's look back at this quarter and have month wise recap.

October

The month of October is always special for bengali movie lovers as it is the season of Durga Puja which has became the most favorite festive season for Bengali film producer since last few weeks.This year Durga Puja season was even bigger with six release Zulfiqar, #Gangster, #Abhimaan, #ByomkeshOChiriyakhana,#Chocolate and #PremKiBujhini. Among these six two were hits, two were average successful and other two surrendered to the other stronger competitors. Let's talk about the movies which made highlights in this month.

#Zulfiqar
One of the most successful director Srijit Mukherjee collaborated with the biggest production house of the industry to make a big budget Magnum opus with almost half dozen

of big stars, definitely this was enough to make #Zulfiqar one of the most awaited film of this year. It was the talk of the town since the first teaser was released. The story concept, to adapt two Shakespeare's novels 'Julius Caesar' and 'Antony and Cleopatra' in one movie that too in the backdrop of mafias in Khidderpore doc area was very fresh and appealing to Bengali cine lovers. Apart from the director and the concept the huge star cast was obviously an added attraction which included names like Prosenjit Chatterjee, Dev, Parambrata Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Kaushik Sen, Ankush, Paoli Dam, Nusrat, Rahul Banerjee among others.Not to forget the wonderful music by Anupam Roy which was already popular before the release of the film. All these factors helped this film to get the biggest opening among the other Puja releases. But after watching it, people were divided in different opinions. Some felt it was a good effort from Srijit but many of the loyal fans of Srijit Mukherjee felt that he tried to attend more commercial subject coming out of his own signature style of film making ,to make it more mass appealing. No matter whether some people were not too happy with it but the positive response towards it was huge enough and that reflected on the box office collections too. Also a great satellite deal and Amazon Prime deal helped it to break even on its second week itself, in spite of having a high budget. On final run it was a big box office success. 
Among the actors Prosenjit Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Kaushik Sen, Paoli Dam got appreciation for their performances. Dev got a huge acclaim for his superb acting in a mute character. But Jisshu Sengupta was the show stealer with his exceptionally well portrayal of a negative character.

#ByomkeshOChiriyakhana
During last year Durga Puja, director Anjan Dutta presented Jisshu Sengupta as new Byomkesh Bakshi and it was a big hit. Getting inspired from last year's success the team

came back this Puja with yet another mystery of Byomkesh Bakshi. This time the story was 'Chiriyakhana'. This was the same story on which Satyajit Ray had made his only Byomkesh movie with Uttam Kumar. Though it was not a kind of remake of Ray's 'Chiriyakhana', rather director Anjan Dutta had made it, in his own way. This time too Jisshu Sengupta, Saswata Chatterjee and Ushoshi were there as Byomkesh, Ajit and Satyabati. Along with them there were a bunch of film and television actors like Shantilal Mukherjee, Sayani Ghosh, Neel Mukjerjee, Priyanka Sarkar, Riju Biswas, Kanchan Mallik and Subhra Saurav Das. All of them were perfect in their roles especially Subhra was too good as a mentally challenged guy. Both Jissu and Saswata were as usual in good form. Whenever Anjan Dutta has made a Byomkesh film it has never failed and this time too there was no exception. The movie got a wonderful opening and considering its limited budget it became a big hit in just few weeks. It continued ruling ticket windows for a long time. In fact it was the most profitable film among the all six releases during this Puja.

#Abhimaan
It was the third mainstream masala movie of this year featuring superstar Jeet. This was a

remake made by director Raj Chakraborty. To add the glamour quotient there were two lovely ladies Shubhoshree and Sayantika. This movie had all the ingredients of a commercial blockbuster action, emotion, drama, romance, songs picturised in beautiful foreign location and a big reliable star. The songs like “Mon Bechara” and “Saiyaan” were quite popular. Moreover to be ahead in the tough completion during Puja weekend the producers choose to release it one day ahead of the other releases. Though this strategy was not that effective for this movie as the number of theaters was very less where it was released one day ahead. It got a decent opening at the small centers and most of the people who had watched this film had liked this family entertainer but in the long run it could not manage to be a big blockbuster. Maybe lack of promotion and tough fight among commercial movies during Puja had ceased its business to some extent. Though  it got an average success but Jeet once again proved that he is still more loved super star than his other contemporaries.

#Gangster
Like every year Shree Venkatesh Films released one out an out commercial film on Puja alongside one Srijit Mujherjee film, this time it was #Gangster. They repeated their last

Puja hit director Birsha Dashgupta who had given a big hit on last Puja with #SudhuTomariJanno. In recent time, commercial movies are not doing good business, maybe because of that this time they launched a new leading man Yash Dashgupta who was already a household name because of his successful TV serial. The presence of Yash had given the film a fresh appeal at the same time it had limited the budget too. This was a love story of a gangster played by Yash where the female lead was played by Mimi Chakraborty. The movie was shot beautifully in the exotic locations of Turkey. The fresh pair and the maiden location had given the movie a refreshing look. Moreover the songs like “Thik Emon” and “Bol Na Re Mon” were very popular much before the release. For the commercial movie lovers it was definitely a good choice to watch during the Puja vacations and they choose to watch it for obvious reasons. The movie got a better than expected opening and continued doing better than average business even having tough completion from the other releases and Bengali film industry got a new commercial star Yash Dashgupta.

November

The month of November ususally have to suffer from the overdose of movies in October during Puja, so normally there is hardly any big movie which comes in November. This year in November there were several small movies but two movies which made a mark were #ThammarBoyfriend and #Antarleen

#ThammarBoyfriend

As the name suggest, it was a movie based on a funny concept of one old grand mother and her young boyfriend played by Savitri Chatterjee and Abir Chatterjee respectively. It was really wonderful to see Savitri Chatterjee playing a leading lady after a long time. Though the subject has been presented as comedy but the main motive of the movie was to give a social message that was to give love and care to the elderly people. It was a nice comedy with some beautiful performances by Abir Chatterjee, Arunima Ghosh and Supriyo Dutta. The movie got a fare enough response at the ticket windows though  business wise it could not be called a successful film but the film got positive response from the audiences and people liked the message of this film. People feel connected with the strong social message. 


#Antarleen
This was a murder mystery with some wonderful performances and engaging twists.

Debutante director Arindam Bhattacharya made this film with a relatively unknown cast and crew which gave it a fresh approach. In this movie for the first time we got to see Kharaj Mukherjee in a lead role that too doing some serious stuff as an investigating officer of crime branch. Also it was lovely to see Mamata Shankar making a comeback in movies with a solid performance. Apart from that, the exotic locations of hill town Kasouli was an added attraction of the film. In spite of being a good thriller it got very cold response at the ticket windows and mostly it was because of the lack of promotion and star value. Though the few number people who had watched this movie , they had liked it very well. We hope, we will get to see some really good movies from this talented director in future.

December

The month of  December is also one special season for Bengali movies as it is time of Christmas and New Year vacation. Specially this vacation season is related with school holidays so it is the perfect time for releasing adventure movies like Feluda and Byomkesh.
This December we witnessed one big clash of the two sleuths when both #DoubleFeluda and #ByomkesPawrbo released on same Friday, though both the movies are doing well at the box office without affecting each other's business.

#ByomkeshPawrbo

Last year director Arindam Sil had reintroduced Byomkesh in his first attempt with

Byomkesh movies with #HarHarByomkesh and this year with #ByomkeshPawrbo he continued that trend. Once again we got a Byomkesh movie which was more mainstream and more contemporary without compromising with the traditional Byomkesh sentiments. This movie was based on Shirdendu Bandopadhyay's novel "Amriter Mrityu", which was about solving the mystery of illegal arms circulation. The backdrop was set in the forest areas of Dooars in the time of 1948. One must say the recreation of the period of 1948 had been done very authentically by the talented crew lead by Director Arindam Sil. As Byomkesh Bakshi, Abir Chatterjee was in superb form and he was the main highlight of the film. Apart from him Sohini Sarkar, Kaushik Sen and Rudranil Ghosh were also appreciated for their performances. Besides fine acting and direction another high point of the film was brilliant cinematography by Soumik Halder. The movie got a very good opening and kept doing good business with every passing day. It is one of the rare successful movies of this year and the way it is gaining popularity it will keep doing good business for long time.


#DoubleFeluda
#DoubleFeluda was not just a regular Feluda movie by Sandip Ray. It was quite different as it marked the celebration of completion of glorious fifty years Feluda series. That is why the word Feluda was used in the title itself and also for the fans it had not one rather two stories

in two halves. These two stories were "Samaddarer Chabi" and "Golakdhaam Rahasya". As Sandip Ray is yet to find a new actor to play Jatayu so he had to choose two stories from the initial phase of Feluda series where Jatayu was not there. To play Feluda and Topshe he once again choose his old favorites Sabyasach Chakraborty and Saheb Bhattacharya. Sabyasachi Chakraborty has played the character of Feluda on screen for the maximum time and he has succeeded to match our expectations every time. Before the release of this film, there were many doubts to many people, as he is growing old and looking aged. But on a surprising note with perfect make up and a better body language Sabyasachi managed to overcome all those shortcomings.
Apart from two stories in two halves, there were some additional features for the fans like the opening credit which showed the original textbook snapshots from different popular Feluda stories to bring back all the memories of reading the books. The end credit was a journey through the memories of Feluda movies where the cast and crew members shared there experience working with Satyajit Ray on Feluda movies, in a short documentary format. Sandip Ray's simple storytelling and Sabyasachi Chakraborty's wonderful performance in the title role make it a favorite among the fans. As expected the movie got a better opening and continued successful run.

Overall the last quarter of 2016 was the best and now we are looking forward to even better and bigger 2017.

Best Film of Quarter 4 2016

• Zulfiqar
• Byomkesh O Chiriyakhana
• Byomkesh Pawrbo
• Double Feluda
• Antarleen

Best Directors of Quarter 4 2016

• Srijit Mukherjee - Zulfiqar
• Anjan Dutta - Byomkesh O Chiriyakhana
• Arindam Sil - Byomkesh Pawrbo
• Sandip Ray - Double Feluda
• Arindam Bhattacharya - Antarleen

 Best Actors of Quarter 4 2016

• Dev - Zulfiqar
• Parambrata Chatterjee -  Zulfiqar
• Jishhu Sengupta - Byomkesh O Chiriyakhana / Zulfiqar
• Kharaj Mukherjee - Antarleen
• Abir Chatterjee - Byomkesh Pawrbo
• Kaushik Sen - Zulfiqar / Byomkesh Pawrbo
• Prosenjit Chatterjee - Zulfiqar
• Saswata Chatterjee - Byomkesh O Chiriyakhana
• Shubhra Saurav Das - Byomkesh O Chiriyakhana
• Ankush Hazra - Zulfiqar
• Rahul Banerjee - Zulfiqar
• Rudranil Ghosh - Chocolate / Byomkesh Pawrbo

Best Actresses of Quarter 4 2016

• Arunima Ghosh - Thammar Boyfriend
• Sohini Sarkar - Byomkesh Pawrbo
• Paoli Dam - Zulfikar
• Mimi Chakraborty - Gangster
• Mamata Shankar - Antarleen