Why am I writing a movie review here? Well, I strongly sense a few subtle lessons for team building in Chak de India, so thought why not share that with the readers of this site?
First, the movie review:
Kabir khan (SRK), India’s hockey team captain receives blows of insults after the Indian team loses out to Pakistan in the world cup finals. Moreover, the “khan” factor raises questions on his loyalty to the country and eventually he gets tagged as a traitor.
7 years later.
The Indian women hockey team is looking for a coach and of course, the association is not serious about the coach-hunt. It just doesn’t matter – these girls are supposed to do the household work and not play international level hockey. Even if they play, can they ever win?
SRK, inspite of knowing the association’s callous attitude accepts the challenge and realizes that his real job is not about coaching, but keeping the entire team function as a single cohesive unit. The team had players with big egos, diverse background and different attitudes.
Hats off to the director, Shimit Amin for taking the path lesser traveled – i.e. hockey (and not cricket).
Chak de India stands apart because of following reasons:
- The movie is very gripping – and the script is tightly coupled with the characters. I promise, you will be glued into the screen.
- Choice of characters – Every player in the team truly represented their states, and the culture. Somehow, somewhere you will identify someone with each of these “next-door” characters
- Attention to detail - Great amount of attention has been paid to the players, the diversity in culture, their language and team dynamics.
- Where are the trees? Chak de India is probably one of the few YashRaj films with a verym low nonsense level. No unnecessary drama, no phoren site seeing..its all about the game. Very focused.
- No Godness factor – Unlike the regular bollywood movies, Chak de..has stayed close to the ground and there is no attempt to make a God out of any actor (SRK included). They all fail, they all fight and lose out too.
- Most importantly, SRK is not SRK in Chak de India- he has tried to get out of his comfort zone (i.e. the usual love story); and must say that he has done an awesome job.
Overall, Chak de India has a very gripping story, a great background score, right mix of comedy/emotions/actions; and in short, is a must watch.
Lets talk about the team dynamics and a few lessons for Indian startups:
One of the most sexy thing about working in startups is the kind of people you get to interact with – most of them are rock stars, smart ass guys! And isn’t that the quality of team you wanna build? The problem is that most of the rock stars carry a big ego tag – they “know” that they are always right; and this, obviously results in friction across the entire team.
Take the case of Bindiya, most experienced player in the team. She took everything for granted – she just knew that she was right..she had her own “fan following” and never cared about the game. Doesn’t she reminds you of your boss who goes on chopping new ideas, innovative solutions? Simply because he has “been there, done that!”?
Me-first attitude: Who doesn’t want to be the numero uno? Now, if I have to be the number 1, everybody else gotta be number 2 (and below). Haven’t you seen this kind of attitude in team members? The internal rivalry leads to people pulling each other down, competing against each other, and of course hoarding the information. What happens to the team? We all know the answer.
Chak de India portrayed this phenomena in a very subtle manner – the top scorers (Preeti Sabharwal and Komal Chautala) are competing to bag the highest scorer tag. So far so good. What really happens is that they start competing with each other and stop passing the ball to each other; which eventually turns out to be a boon to the opponent team.
If I go on, I will end up writing the entire story here! So, buddy go ahead and chak de for yourself.
Living up the team spirit , take your friends along too! It’ll be fun.
Also, do let me know of interesting lessons I have missed out?
Related: Beatles and Lessons on Teamwork.
Indian Internet, Indian StartUps and Indian Movies!!!
Interesting touch to the movie. I liked your review..and must say that you too have a good ‘attention to detail’!!
I am quite surprised by the fact that this was from Yash chopra factory! – and this is their second off beat movie in the recent times – after kabul express
The interesting part is how to bring these big ego stars together. and strike a fine balance. Interesting post..now I’ve got to see the movie.
Shivani
I don’t believe you actually did a Movie review and then compared it with the Indian Startup scenrio.
And even if you had to , maybe movies like “Remember the Titans” and “Escape to Victory” would have been more apt (comparitively) for the Indian Startup comparisons.
I’m sorry, but it’s just too cheesy to compare things at this level.
Next maybe we can extract lessons from songs like “We are the Champions” or better yet “Jo jeeta wohi sikander”
Hey Raseel
The post is more about the team spirit and building the same sort of cohesiveness in any startup.
The reason I wrote a quick review before bringing up the team spirit part was to set the context (especially for those who havent seen the movie).
I have worked in a kickass startup with very smart ass – and am aware of these issues and believe me, its way too difficult to manage such a team – thts why companies like Google had to hire a senior person to manage the show..
BTW – Chak de India seems to be inspired from Hoosiers. What says?
I dont see anything wrong with this. The post is more about team spirit and less about startups.
Ok !!! Maybe I came in too hard. But my point was, this is a Blog on new and upcoming Indian Startups. The context of a movie review doesn’t sound too cool (unless the blog was about a entertainment or movie portal/service).
But I guess, I get what you’re trying to say.
And I don’t seem to remember seeing a movie called Hossiers.
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Speaking about team building and movies, just want to bring up “Twelve Angry men”. For starters, its a nice 1950′s american classic featuring Henry Fonda. This movie is used even today as a team building tool in corporate america. I could Visualize something of that sort happening in indian context as well with movies like Lagaan and Chak De, if only there are more cross posts (startup blogs featuring movie reviews)like this.
Thanx for the Review and you just made my day!
@Ashsih
You call the team in chak de a team? Led by a captain, who has not a single dialog with the team? The team comprised of 16 but barring preeti, balbir and komal which other team member had any contribution whatsoever? Balbir had some skill at least but that too because of her physical built. What skills did the other 12 have? Did the writer forget about them? Bindiya did something towards the end. That too was totally unexplained. In the first place, why did kabir khan remove her from her primary strength position? Can you explain?
Do you even remember Aliya Bose, Gunjan Lakhani, Soimoi, Nethra Reddy, Gul Iqbal, Molly Zimik and Mary Ralte? Well I do not either. I copied these names from some site. Even that site did not have the names of the other players. What role did they play in the “team”?
Excuse me but your “kick ass team” won only because Mr Director wanted that. Otherwise no wise man can see any such potential in the team. The coach united the team. At least that is what I was made to believe. But did the team ever realize what did the coach do for them? Not a single scene in that respect, why??? There was not even a single eye contact of any player with the coach after the final match, why???
Now, if you compare chak de with lagaan…I can bet you’ll still remember most of the team members’ names and their specific skill set, which led them to victory.
And don’t tell me that the screen time of 2:30 hrs does not allow that. That is what we call screenplay. And I repeat, Chak De could have been much better if it was written well.
Check my review at moviewalah.com
http://www.moviewalah.com
Vijay
@Vijay: The team has certain set of rock stars, a few great execut-ioners and a few followers. you don’t have to remember all the 11 players in the movie (otherwise you end up making 3.5 hrs lagaan sort of movie).
“did the team ever realize what did the coach do for them?” – If not, then why did they say sorry to him@ McD outlet? Point I am trying to make is that a few emotions can be displayed in subtle manner and not really a need to get too verbose about it..
“if you compare chak de with lagaan” – Is that you really want to do? Compare apples with oranges? The two movies are diff. they talk about diff games..one very popular theme (cricket), the other – not at all popular.
“Chak De could have been much better if it was written well” – Well, there are always areas of improvement.
But overall, its a bold step for bollywood and I have lotsa respect for the team. SRK included.
@Ashish
That don’t convince me much.
I am not really comparing Lagaan with Chak De. If I do that, I would not even give 2.5 stars to Chak De. It stands no chance. The point I wanted to make was I did not see the chak de team as a “team” in the first place. At least in the games they could have shown some contribution from the other players. 3 out of 16 contributing don’t make a team. Again, my comment was in “kick ass team” reference and not movie in general.
Honestly speaking if it was not for Shah Rukh, the movie would not even been discussed so much. I think, that speaks a lot about the “movie”, without getting too verbose
infact this kind of film was needed, to make us feel abt our national game hockey.this is agood movie to promote hockey among children.it lets us know abt regional divide, compition between players and above all ego of players,and how sharukh as a coach was able to handle this issue.there should be some more scenes abt
team handling from the view of players, and 1 or 2 scenes on what monetary benefit the players had after the win.the rolle of the team captain should be more powerful there are 2 or 3 scenes in the film which willl make u cry. and the song maula maula though it is in punjabi makes u emotional.and above all sharukh is very good in emotional scenes.
total rating from my side is 3 out of 5
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the movie is a bloody shit though some of d olayers r a bit sexy nd arouse our interest in d movie ….bindiya nayak seems a real prostitute bthere whereas sabarwal is a real bomb shell……………….