Favourite Chak De India girl? (Movie completes 15 years today)

Just thought of talking about this movie because yesterday I rewatched it after years I think this film would've worked lot better as a show.

Going through YouTube I saw all the deleted scenes of Chak De! India, which made me watch the film again after years. Now after watching the movie and also the deleted scenes, I wish they added some of those scenes. Because the deleted scenes gave some more character development to the girls and I think the film needed that.

Like Gul's story and arc is completely taken out of the film, which must be really sad for the actor. They only included her intro to give some background information about her and her family. To tell how she comes from a family of hockey players and has the pressure of living through her parents legacy, which in the context of the film doesn't make any sense, because they did the set-up and didn't do any pay-off for the character.

The Queen Bee gang of Bindiya, Gunjan and Aliya also have some deleted scenes where they throw tantrums by not coming for practice, that gives more insight on the characters, their dynamic and why they're like that in the film.

One scene between Molly and Aliya shows their rivalry is deeper. Another scene with Nethra also tells about her family background. One more scene with Vidya where she tries to stop the fight between Preeti and Komal also kinda tells why she got to be the captain (still not enough).

Some scenes did deserve to be deleted though. Like a scene with Vidya and her husband makes him and her in-laws bigger jerks than they were in the film. One more scene where Kabir advices Vidya to go home happily with her husband, gives a wrong message that women should just accept however their marriage and relationship with their husbands is. Removing those scenes were necessary to not make the movie problematic or regressive. Still Vidya's story doesn't really have a satisfying conclusion.

There's another scene where Bindiya casually accuses Kabir and Vidya of having an affair infront of the whole team and foreign officials during world cup, completely destroying her character. In one conversation, Kabir tells Gul to only play for herself which betrays his character, since in the whole movie he's telling the girls to play for India and their teammates before playing for themselves. That's his whole arc.

Although, there were still some scenes which the movie really needed but weren't there in the deleted scenes as well. Like why Vidya was made the captain? The film needed to show some scenes of Vidya showing some leadership skills, to tell why she deserved to be the captain when it was as a reason of conflict between Kabir and Bindiya. Especially when Bindiya was the only girl in the team who showed leadership skills in the film.

Also why Bindiya thought Kabir and Vidya have an affair? They show only one scene to justify that but that wasn't enough.The movie also addresses some social issues like how North Indians view and treat North-East people, Adivasis and South Indians. But it's really done to only check some boxes, since they don't go deeper into these issues.

This post is really not about me criticizing or bashing the film. I just wanted to say this movie could've been alot better as a series since it was covering a wide array of topics and characters. But since it's a movie, it did fine with a runtime of 2 and half hours. The director prioritised the film being about hockey and patriotism over anything else and the character of SRK (obviously) over any of the girls.

Tell who was your favourite CDI girl in the film and why?

Deleted scenes of the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5O1ZXBzZp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nwFhSuEsA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfuUEXKggJg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRxJ29m30fQ

Preeti Sabarwal is such an accurate caricature of the Chandigarh crowd. 😆

When I was younger I liked Preeti

Now I like Komal it was nice of her to let Preeti score the final goal

Alia was such a fun character with her red hairends and all. She might be buddies with Bindiya. But she's not pessimistic and don't care all that much about ousting the coach. She's just out to have some fun. I love how she pretends to swoon when Preeti goes out with her cricketer fiance. Liked Gunjan too. But she's so quiet and we don't know all that much about her other than she has the nickname Kanyakumari and is one of Bindiya's gang too.

Preeti and Aliya Bose

Originally posted by: capricornrcks

Alia was such a fun character with her red hairends and all. She might be buddies with Bindiya. But she's not pessimistic and don't care all that much about ousting the coach. She's just out to have some fun. I love how she pretends to swoon when Preeti goes out with her cricketer fiance. Liked Gunjan too. But she's quite and we don't know all that much about her other than she has the nickname Kanyakumari and is one of Bindiya's gang too.

Yes Aliya's character is my favourite as well. She was cool. I wish she got more focus in the movie. The deleted scenes show more of her character. She would definitely been a fan-favourite if she got more screentime.