‘Made in China’ Movie Review:
A Hilarious
Entrepreneurial Journey!
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| Image Courtesy: koimoi.com |
Reviewer’s Thumb Mark
"You
have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as
an end” – Jessica Herrin
Made
in China’s Raghuvir Mehta in short Raghu (Rajkummar Rao) is a young man who is
not ready to quit even after thirteen failed endeavours until he becomes a successful
businessman. He is continuously discouraged and taunted because of consistent failure in all his endeavours by his wealthy and pompous uncle Vhinde
Bhai (Manoj Joshi) and his cousin (Sumeet Vyas) who is a xerox copy of his father.
Raghu had tried his luck on everything from selling Nepali carpets, Eggs of
Emu, Chappathi maker and to what not; as the proverb goes – “Just when the caterpillar
thought, the world was over, it became a butterfly” Raghu didn’t even imagine
in his wildest dream that his visit to China would turn out to be a new beginning clubbed
with lots of unprecedented twists and turns.
Vhinde
Bhai forcibly sent Raghu along with Devraj to China for a business presentation, thinking that he will learn some skills from his brother and make the Mehtas
proud. But things don’t work as planned and his cousin is outrightly rejected
by a Gujarati business genius Tanmay Shah (Paresh Rawal) in the first business meeting itself. As Devraj walks out of the meeting, the business wizard strikes a chord
with Raghu and tells him that he has a bright future and invites him for a
party. Raghu gets bowled over by his business acumen when he sees Tanmay
Shah selling the Gujarati delicacy Thepela to a bunch of his foreigner friends so effortlessly.
Charged by his experience in China, Raghu returns with two things with him – one, a
magic soup that works as an aphrodisiac to enhance virility and two, the guru
mantra given to him by Mr Shah that ‘Customers are fools’.
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| Image Courtesy: hindustantimes.com |
Raghu
armed with his newfound potent product ‘The Magic Soup' does exactly what Mandy
Hale has aptly pointed out – “There is nothing more beautiful than someone who
goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others”. Raghu collaborates
with Dr Vardhi (Boman Irani) a sexologist who was shunted out of Bhutan for his
controversial sex awareness program he pursued there, which made him finally restrict
himself to a small clinic in Ahmedabad treating patients who occasionally visited him. What follows is a team handpicked by
both of them to manufacture, promote and sell 'The Magic Soup'.
The above-mentioned story is not enough to gauge what happens next because Raghu’s entrepreneurial journey is full of potholes that he needs to be careful off and
pursue his journey to leave a mark as a successful businessman. One needs to watch this movie to know whether he becomes
successful in keeping the customers, his wife, his uncle, cousin and the Indian
and Chinese government fools for long. It is also interesting to know how he got allegedly linked to the murder of a Chinese General in Ahmedabad who got killed by helping
himself with a bowl of 'The Magic Soup'.
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| Image Courtesy: indiatoday.in |
Mikhil
Musale, the maker of the national award-winning Gujarati film ‘Wrong Side Raju’,
has co-written and directed the film Made in China. He starts off the film as a
murder thriller and slowly like a chameleon changes the story's focuses on the journey of an overly ambitious young man’s
entrepreneurial struggle and then suddenly slips into a sex awareness program
where he speaks volumes on how Indians shy away from speaking the word Sex in
public and how virility for many is ‘Power’. Amidst all these the filmmaker finds pleasure
in spouting some below the belt humour which is very funny. The role of Gajraj Rao
as Abhay Chopra, a motivational trainer is half baked and fails to do justice to
such a talented actor. Mouni Roy (Rukmini) is full of Oomph and it seems that she is
there unfortunately for that only. She as the better half of Raghu is in no way match to his
simplicity as a Gujrati guy and even falls short of having a Gujrati accent. Her
reaction to his newfound business venture is contrary to the character she portrays. Rukmini is bold, open, ready to explore and talk without any inhibition on taboo
topics like sexual satisfaction, orgasm and share a drink with her husband outside but can't take her husband selling performance enhancement products without her knowledge and feels that he has fallen from grace as a person.
In
short, Made in China is at least better than Shilpi Dasgupta’s ‘Khandaani Shafahkana,
but fails to tell a story well on a serious topic humorously. You can
still watch this film but with zero expectations. Go for Rajkummar Rao and the show
stealer Boman Irani as Dr Vardhi, the 70-year-old sexologist. Maybe you may walk
out of the theatre realizing that you are being fooled as a customer by many every
day, if so, Jaago Grahak Jaago.
Life Connoisseur Movie Rating: 2.5/5
Cast: Rajkummar Rao
(Raghuvir Mehta), Mouni Roy (Rukmini Mehta), Boman Irani (Dr Vardhi), Amyra
Dastur (Roopa), Paresh Rawal (Tanmay Shah), Gajraj Rao (Chopra), Sumeet Vyas
(Devraj), Manj Joshi (Vhinde Bhai), Amit Bimrot (Ravi Panchal), Chittaranjan
Tripathy and Abhishek Banerjee (CBI Officers)
Genre: Comedy Drama
Director:
Mikhil Musale
Producers:
Dinesh Vijan, Sharada Karki Jalota
Written by:
Niren Bhatt, Karan Vyas (Dialogues)
Based on the book:
Made in China by Parinda Joshi
Story by:
Mikhil Musale, Niren Bhatt, Karan Vyas, Parinda Joshi
Music by:
Sachin-Jigar
Background
Score: John Stewart Eduri
Cinematography:
Anuj Rakesh Dhawan
Edited by:
Manan Ashwin Mehta
Production Company:
Maddock Films, Jio Studios
Distributor:
AA Films
Release Date:
25 October 2019
Duration:
128 Minutes
Language:
Hindi
