If you’re in the mood for something outside of the ordinary fare offered by your local multiplex, here comes the highest grossing Nepalese film of all time.
How to watch Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi in New Zealand
Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi is now screening in New Zealand cinemas.
What is Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi about?
Directed by Saroj Poudel and written by Mahesh Dawad, working from a story by Poudel, Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi focuses on the struggles of Nepal’s Gandharva community: impoverished and itinerant musicians, who have a hard time of it in a society built around a harsh and rigorously enforced caste system. When his daughter asks him about their family history, doctor Kamal Gandharva tells her the story of his own father, a sarangi player who romances Batuli, a girl from a higher caste, but faces huge challenges trying to ensure his son has a better chance at life.
It’s a tragic melodrama, as Nepalese films tend to be, so take tissues. It’s also two and a half hours long.
The cast of Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi
Bijay Baral is Purna Bahadur Gandharva; Mukun Bhusal is Bire, Purna’s cousin; Prakash Saput is Kamal Gandharva, Purna Bahadur’s son, with Swayam KC aplaying the younger version; Anjana Baraili is Batuli, Purna Bahadur’s wife; and Buddhi Tamang is Dhakre Maila.
Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi trailer
Why we’re excited about Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi
One of the best things cinema can ever do is give you an insight into places you’ll probably never go, and lives you will definitely never live. Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi ticks both those boxes, and has proved to be a huge hit both at home and in the international Nepali diaspora. By all accounts the musical soundtrack is an absolute banger. Besides, when’s the last time you saw a Nepalese musical melodrama? We don’t get too many of those.
