Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota

Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Vasan Bala
Screenplay by	Vasan Bala
Produced by	Ronnie Screwvala
Starring	Abhimanyu Dassani Radhika Madan Gulshan Devaiah Mahesh Manjrekar Jimit Trivedi
Cinematography	Jay I Patel
Edited by	Aarti Bajaj
Music by	Karan Kulkarni Dipanjan Guha
Production company	RSVP Movies
Distributed by	RSVP Movies
Release date	10 September 2018 (2018-09-10) (TIFF) 21 March 2019 (2019-03-21) (India)
Running time	138 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹12 crore[1]
Box office	₹2.03 crore (India)[2] $22,094 (other)[3]

Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota (Hindi pronunciation: [məɾd̪ koː d̪əɾd̪ nəɦiː ɦoːt̪aː]), released internationally as The Man Who Feels No Pain, is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language martial arts comedy film written and directed by Vasan Bala and produced by Ronnie Screwvala under his banner RSVP Movies. The film stars debutant Abhimanyu Dassani, Radhika Madan, Gulshan Devaiah, Mahesh Manjrekar, Jimit Trivedi^[4] and Prateek Parmar.

The film premiered in the Midnight Madness section of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice Award: Midnight Madness.^[5][6] The film was also screened at the 2018 MAMI Film Festival where it received standing ovation.^[7] The film's story follows a young man who has a rare condition called Congenital insensitivity to pain and strikes out on a quest to vanquish his foes. Bhagyashree's son Abhimanyu Dassani made his acting debut with the film.^[8] The film was released in theatres on 21 March 2019 and received positive reviews from critics.^[9]

Plot[]

Surya is born with a strange condition under tragic circumstances. He is diagnosed with a rare disorder Congenital insensitivity to pain and is tended to by the odd-couple combination of his father and his mischievous grandfather Ajoba. School life is difficult for a boy who doesn't feel pain and is picked on by bullies and, yet, Surya finds an unlikely ally in his neighbour, Supri. At home, Surya learns to tend to his own wounds and binges on a whole host of martial arts films on VHS tapes thanks to his grandfather's unique tutelage. The one tape that mesmerises young Surya is 100-man karate kumite fought by a mysterious one-legged man called Karate Mani. His foray into vigilantism is to come to the aid of Supri against her abusive father, but that event leads to the family being evicted from the building they lived in, and Surya and Supri are estranged as children. They go their separate ways, each one finding purpose and mentorship in unusual circumstances.

Ajoba encourages Surya to pursue his passion secretly & Surya trains himself by watching VHS videos. Meanwhile, Supri is trained by Karate Mani, whom she meets when she accidentally bumps into his scooter.

As an adult, Surya remains as dorky as he was as a child because his father will never let him leave the house. When his father finally agrees to let him outside, Surya finds a poster advertising his childhood idol Karate Mani. This poster leads him to the very building where he and Supri had been separated years ago, and it is Supri who is pasting the posters. Both of them don't recognise each other, but he is bedazzled when she fights off thugs to rescue a lady. Later, Surya visits the address mentioned on the poster to meet Karate Mani. He finds him knocked out by his evil twin Jimmy, and his assistant calls Supri to help him. They take him to a hospital, where only Supri and Surya are left when the rest of them leave. Later Supri is forcefully taken away from the hospital by her boyfriend Atul, and Surya fails to understand why she didn't fight back. Mani recovers consciousness, and he escapes from the hospital, feeling that the hospital will bill him a bomb for trivial treatment. Surya chases him and fights off the hospital staff who had come to capture him, and Mani is impressed with his skill and reveals his story.

Mani and Jimmy were trained by his father, a Karate trainer, since they were kids. Mani showed that talent for martial arts and easily won the heart of his father, which made Jimmy jealous. One fine day Mani saves Jimmy from a speeding truck, sacrificing his leg in the process. This further elevates Mani in the eyes of his father, and Jimmy is further estranged. After the 100-man kumite, his father gifts him his locket, whereas Jimmy takes up the path of crime. Once jailed for one of his crimes, Mani gets cozy with Jimmy's girlfriend, and Jimmy catches them red-handed in bed when he returns. This incident creates a permanent rift between the two, putting Mani in a guilt trap. Later Jimmy starts a security agency and bullies Mani with men and guns from his security agency, taking something from him each time he visits him, while Mani relents out of guilt.

Supri later reveals that Atul won over her parents by taking care of their medical expenses, which sort of forced her to stay with him so that her mother would get adequate medical care. Atul is taking her family to Canada to treat her mother. Supri is falling into the same trap of family burden as her mother bore all her life with an abusive husband, so much so that she doesn't have time to think for herself and no clue of what she would do in life or what career she would pursue.

On his previous visit, Jimmy snatches the locket that was given by their father to Mani, and Surya vows to get it back for him. His grandfather tries to dissuade him as it is too dangerous but eventually gives in when he realises that he should not kill this very motivating factor. When Surya meets Mani, he refuses to take him to Jimmy, but when Surya stops at nothing, he accompanies him to Jimmy's office. Meanwhile, at the airport just before boarding their flight to Canada, Supri's mother insists that she run away from Atul so that she doesn't go through the same fate of an overbearing husband. She hatches a plan wherein she covers up for the absence of Supri inside the plane and falls unconscious with a heavy dose of insulin once the plane lands in Canada, and once unconscious at the airport, she has to be admitted to hospital to be treated. Supri leaves after some pushing from her mother and goes straight to Jimmy's office, knowing Surya would create some ruckus there. At Jimmy's office, a fight ensues between his staff and the two. Surya easily thrashes most of them, and they are surprised to find that Surya doesn't experience the pain, which makes him more lethal. In the ensuing fight, fire is triggered, and the staff lock them in a room and escape from the building. Supri enters in a nick of time and rescues them. They later take refuge at their old residential complex, where they had spent their childhood, which is deserted for reconstruction, and Ajoba gets them all the essentials like blankets and food. Supri and Surya have sex on the roof of the deserted residential complex.

Early in the morning, they are all captured by Jimmy, and he arranges a cruel game, where each one of them has to fight his staff members one-on-one. The first up is Mani, followed by Supri, Surya, and Ajoba. Supri and Mani knock down a quite a few men before going down. All of them attack Surya barring one, and Surya knocks them all out. Jimmy then sends his last remaining fighter: his best one. Just to quickly end the contest, he changes the rules: a 10-point match where a point is scored with every hit. Surya is injured when his foot is fractured by his opponent. Mani throws his crutch for help. Surya decides that it is time to break the rule and hits his opponent close to the eye with the crutch, temporarily blinding him and finishes off the match. Jimmy is enraged at this, and he shoots and stabs him. Supri intervenes, snatches the gun and shoots Jimmy dead.

Later, Surya wakes up at his home, turned hospital. Supri and Ajoba are next to him. Mani is revealed to be in jail, who owns up to the murder of Jimmy. Surya goes on to fulfill his father's aspiration to become an accountant. Supri's mother gets treated in Canada. Now liberated from the burden of her mother's treatment, she finally starts thinking of her own self and starts focusing on her career.

Cast[]

• Abhimanyu Dassani as Suryaanshu "Surya" Sampat
• Radhika Madan as Supriya "Supri" Bhatnagar
• Gulshan Devaiah as Karate Mani and Jimmy
• Mahesh Manjrekar as Aajoba (grandpa)
• Jimit Trivedi as Jatin Sampat
• Shweta Basu Prasad as Aai (mother)
• Elena Kazan as Nandini/Bridget Von Hammersmark
• Sartaaj Kakkar as young Surya
• Riva Arora as young Supri

Production[]

Director Vasan Bala said that in early 2016, a friend of his told him about a dentist whose patient did not ask for anaesthesia. This triggered the idea of the film to him.^[10] He then saw several documentaries and blended it with his childhood stories about martial arts. He said: "The story is about all the films that I grew up on, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan [..] all the karate classes I had to take."^[10] Bala said that the film is a tribute to "all the films that we have seen."^[10] For the preparation of the role, Dassani trained for martial arts for three months before the audition. He also practised swimming, gymnastics, yoga, freehand training, stick fighting and studied human anatomy, injuries, and first aid.^[11] Action director and martial arts consultant Prateek Parmar made his acting debut with the film, he also served as the martial arts consultant.^[12] Dassani went through one-and-a-half month of auditions with other people. Devaiah learned karate while Madan and Abhimanyu learned mixed martial arts.^[10] All of them went through almost eight months of training.^[10]

Madan mentioned that she was auditioning for Laila Majnu (2018) when she got to know about Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and chose the latter film because of its "uniqueness".^[13] She performed all the stunts herself and watched several classic action films for days to familiarise herself with the genre. She was also injured and bruised during the physical training; she also followed a strict diet and a daily routine of exercises.^[13]

Marketing and release[]

The official theatrical poster of the film was unveiled on 11 February 2019.^[14][15] The film was released in theatres on 21 March 2019 by RSVP Movies in India, New Zealand, and Australia, and was also released later in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.^[16]

The film only played on 375 screens in India due to a dispute with multiplex cinema companies.^[17] Producer Ronnie Screwvala claimed that four multiplex chains were imposing unnecessary fees to Hindi films, and he filed a grievance with the Competition Commission of India; in retaliation, INOX Leisure Limited would not play Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota on any of its screens. These "Virtual Print Fees" originated in 2010 to help cinemas transition from film prints to digital, but have continued longer than they were supposed to.^[18] During its first week, the film made only ₹2.4 crore.^[1]

Home media[]

The film became available as VOD on China's iQIYI on 4 April 2019,^[17] and on Netflix on 22 May 2019.^[19]

Soundtrack[]

Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota
Soundtrack album by Karan Kulkarni and Dipanjan Guha
Released	11 March 2019 [20]
Recorded	2017-18
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	24:57
Language	Hindi
Label	Zee Music Company
External audio Audio Jukebox on YouTube
Karan Kulkarni chronology
Aligarh (2015) Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota (2019)

The music of the film is composed by Karan Kulkarni and Dipanjan Guha while the lyrics are penned by Garima Obrah, Karan Kulkarni, Shantanu Ghatak and Hussain Haidry.

Reception[]

Critical response[]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has scored 94% based on 18 reviews with an average rating of 6.9/10.^[9] Rafael Motamayor of Bloody Disgusting called the film "India's highly entertaining answer to Deadpool".^[21] J Hurtado of Screen Anarchy wrote: "In this boisterous action comedy, Bala's passions and obsessions are writ large across the screen with a genuine affection that is hard to deny."^[22] He later included it in his list of 14 Favorite Indian Films of 2018.^[23] Joe Leydon of Variety wrote: "Writer-director Vasan Bala’s wild and wacky yet also warm and fuzzy fable about a resourceful young man who transcends ostensible physical limitations to become a two-fisted, swift-kicking hero likely will prove to be an irresistible crowd-pleaser on the global fest circuit, and in an international release on various platforms."^[24] For Scroll.in, Nandini Ramnath writes, "Vasan Bala’s action comedy, which he has also written, plays out at the intersection of cinephilia, nostalgia and mischief."^[25] Shikhar Verma of High On Films writes, "Vasan Bala’s film has endearing characters who all call for a big celebratory leap forward for conventional Hindi films; but the entire arc that comes along with the self-awareness lacks real oomph or glow."^[26]

Stephen Dalton of The Hollywood Reporter called it a "fun ride, unashamedly zany and eager to please, even if the humor is very broad and the sprawling plot too baggy for an action-driven piece."^[27] Rahul Desai of Film Companion called it "a Whimsically joyful ode to a life of movies."^[28] Pradeep Menon of Firstpost wrote that the film "remains watchable throughout, despite all its shaky foundation, precisely because it gives us an experience we rarely see in Indian cinema."^[29] Devesh Sharma of Filmfare giving three stars out of five says, "All-all-all, the film’s gags don’t travel well outside the context. It’s one of those -- ‘you’ve to be there’—kind of films. But within those two hours, you'll surely laugh your head off."^[30] Raja Sen of Hindustan Times giving four stars out of five feels that the film is most entertaining action movie in decades.^[31]

Awards and nominations[]

References[]

External links[]

• Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota at IMDb
• Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota at Bollywood Hungama
• Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota at Rotten Tomatoes