23rd March 1931: Shaheed is a 2002 Indian Hindi-language biographical historical drama based on the life of Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh directed by Guddu Dhanoa. It depicts the events leading up to the hanging of Singh and his companions Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar on 23 March 1931. The film stars Bobby Deol as Bhagat Singh, his elder brother Sunny Deol as Chandra Shekhar Azad, Amrita Singh as Vidyavati Kaur Sandhu (Bhagat's mother) and Aishwarya Rai as Mannewali (special appearance), along with Rahul Dev, Vicky Ahuja, Vivek Shauq and Raja Bundela.
The film's release coincided with another film based on Bhagat Singh directed by Rajkumar Santoshi titled The Legend of Bhagat Singh. Both films failed at the box office.
Contents
Plot
Set in the mid-1920s in British India, the film tells the story of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, who have only one motive in mind: freedom for India. They set about doing this task together with two other men, Sukhdev and Rajguru. Bhagat Singh is enraged when his mentor Lala Lajpat Rai is mercilessly beaten to death by the police, and he sets about to avenge his death. He and his colleagues do succeed in killing one of the officials responsible, but they are identified, and as a result, Bhagat and Others are arrested and held in prison, where they are tortured relentlessly.
When produced in court, they dramatically admit to the killing and claim that it was done in the name of "freedom." The judge and the public prosecutor do not see it their way, and they are sentenced to life in prison. Bhagat's mother, Vidya, comes to meet him in prison, and he goes to greet her, shackled in chains from head to toe, and he foretells that India will continue to suffer, even after independence from the British, and that he will return in another birth to free his motherland. Subsequently, all three are charged with treason and assassination and are sentenced to death.
Cast
Sunny Deol as Chandra Shekhar Azad
Bobby Deol as Bhagat Singh
Amrita Singh as Vidyavati Kaur Sandhu, Bhagat's mother.
Rahul Dev as Sukhdev Thapar
Akshay Anand as Ram Prasad Bismil
Vicky Ahuja as Shivaram Rajguru
Divya Dutta as Durgawati Devi
Aishwarya Rai as Mannewali, the girl Bhagat's family wanted him to marry. (special appearance)
Raja Bundela as Lala Lajpat Rai
Suresh Oberoi as Jailor Chaddha
Shakti Kapoor as Jail Warden Chattar Singh
Vivek Shauq as Bhagwati Charan Vohra
Samaresh Routray as Yashpal
Tej Sapru as Dilbagh Singh
Rajesh Khera as Sardar Ajit Singh, Bhagat's uncle.
Deepak Sharma as Jatindra Nath Das
Suresh Chatwal as Pandit Kishori Lal
Sachin Khedekar as Advocate Asaf Ali
Manoj Tiwari as Virbhadra Tiwari
Rana Jung Bahadur as Public Prosecutor Ashish Verma
Music
The music for the film’s songs was composed by Anand Raaj Anand with the lyrics penned by Dev Kohli. The background score was provided by Surinder Sodhi.
Box office
The film failed to cover its budget thus underperforming at the box office, collecting only ₹14.25 crore by the end of its theatrical run.
Shubhra Gupta of Business Line attributed the film's commercial failure to its release on the same day as The Legend of Bhagat Singh, opining that "the two Bhagats ate into each other's business". The producer of the film The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Ramesh Taurani, also acknowledged this as a reason for his film's failure, along with the release of another Bhagat Singh film Shaheed-E-Azam the week before.