Jodhaa Akbar
Short description
Jodhaa Akbar is a historical romance set in sixteenth-century India, where the Mughal emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar seeks to expand and unify his realm. Rather than relying only on conquest, he agrees to marry Jodhaa Bai, a Rajput princess of a different faith, as a political alliance meant to bring two peoples together. The marriage, arranged for strategic reasons, gradually develops into genuine affection, even as it meets resistance from those on both sides who distrust the union between a Muslim emperor and a Hindu princess.
The film was directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Haidar Ali and produced it with Ronnie Screwvala. It followed his earlier features Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India and Swades, and it stars Hrithik Roshan as Akbar and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Jodhaa. The supporting cast includes Sonu Sood, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Suhasini Mulay and Raza Murad, with 49 credited cast members and 92 credited crew.
Running 213 minutes, the film earned a critics' rating of 7.2 out of 10 from 19 reviews. On IMDb it holds 7.5 out of 10 from 36,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3 out of 10 from 289 votes, a fairly consistent reception across critics and audiences.
What's left behind the scenes
- Nita Lulla designed costumes for both the lead actress and the rest of the film's cast.
- The jewelry worn by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's character at the wedding weighed 3.5 kg.
- The cannons are made of carbon fiber with metal inserts inside.
- Aishwarya Rai Bachchan wore contact lenses on set that made her eyes brown.
- For the sword fight between the characters of Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the swords were initially made of wood, but they proved awkward to handle, so new swords were made for the actors from fiberglass.
- The food shown in the film was made from butter churned from buffalo milk. For this reason, the actors refused to film more than one take, so they wouldn't have to taste it again.
- 200 artisans worked for 600 days to create the precious stones for the film. Approximately 300 kg of precious stones were used in total. Their shapes were based on examples from surviving Mughal miniature paintings and verified against the biography of the Great Mughal Akbar, written by his vizier Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak Allami (1551-1602), and his book “Akbarnama” (a chronicle in Persian describing the history of the Mughal Empire).
- The film's production was preceded by a year and a half of studying the clothing worn during the Mughal Empire era.
- Idrajit Sarkar played the role of Birbal, but all scenes with him were cut during editing to make the film shorter.
- Considering the opulence of the Mughal Empire, Nita Lulla used gold embroidery with precious stones in the costumes of the main characters.
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