The Warrior

2001
R
1h 26m

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

2.8K

YOUR RATING

Play trailer1:26

2 Videos

48 Photos

Adventure Drama

In feudal India, a warrior (Khan) who renounces his role as the long time enforcer to a local lord becomes the prey in a murderous hunt through the Himalayan mountains.In feudal India, a warrior (Khan) who renounces his role as the long time enforcer to a local lord becomes the prey in a murderous hunt through the Himalayan mountains.In feudal India, a warrior (Khan) who renounces his role as the long time enforcer to a local lord becomes the prey in a murderous hunt through the Himalayan mountains.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

2.8K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Won 2 BAFTA Awards
- 8 wins & 7 nominations total

Videos2

Photos48

+ 41

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The Hindi-language film "The Warrior" was chosen by the British Academy of Film and Television to represent the UK in the "Best Foreign Language Film" category at the 2003 Oscars. The AMPAA took the highly unusual step of rejecting the movie because although the film had a British-born director (of Indian ancestry) and was co-produced by three British companies, the film did not qualify as British since "Hindi was not a language indigenous to the U.K." The British Academy was forced to submit its second choice, the Welsh-language, "Eldra". In an ironic twist, "The Warrior" went on to win "Best British Film" at the British Academy Awards the following year, although it lost "Best Non-English Film" to a film from Spain.

Goofs
Although the film takes place in medieval India, smoking, unknown in the Old World before contact with the Americas and rare or absent across India before the British period (beginning circa 1600), is widespread. Further, cigarettes constitute most or all of the smoking shown in the film but were invented late in the 19th century. Prior to that, tobacco was smoked almost exclusively in pipes (cigars in the Caribbean).

Similarly, a basket of maize ears is overturned in one scene. Maize was developed by Meso-American peoples and not common in India until well after the beginning of the British period.

Connections
Referenced in OWV Updates: Christmas Multimedia Update 2015 (2015)

User reviews51

Review

Featured review

7/10

Beautiful to look at

A slow moving and beautifully shot meditation on life and death, all set within a barren and inhospitable landscape. THE WARRIOR marked Asif Kapadia's breakout from short films into feature length cinema, and it's a stunning debut. A familiar storyline unfolds in a leisurely and unhurried way, promoting realism at all times. Don't go in thinking this is an action film due to the misleading title, because you'll be disappointed: there isn't a single sword fight to be found.

Irrfan Khan is a delight as the titular character, but the real star here is Kapadia himself. His cinematography aches with beauty, and he has a way of shooting isolated landscapes in a way that few other directors can match (for more of this check out FAR NORTH). Not since Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre have I seen such a film shot through with this kind of artistic composition. There are shades of the Lone Wolf & Cub films here, but this meditative film turns out to be something else entirely; I really liked it.