Ganapath

Ganapath: A Hero is Born is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language dystopian sports action film written and directed by Vikas Bahl, who also produced the film in association with Jackky Bhagnani, Vashu Bhagnani and Deepshikha Deshmukh. It stars Tiger Shroff in a dual role alongside Kriti Sanon, Amitabh Bachchan, Elli AvrRam and Rahman.

The film was announced in November 2020 and underwent a long, heavy pre-production stage. Principal photography commenced in November 2021 and wrapped up in February 2023 with filming taking place in United Kingdom, Ladakh and Mumbai.

Ganapath was released theatrically on 19 October 2023 and received negative reviews from critics. The film was a box office bomb.

Plot
In the year 2070, a destructive war leaves the world divided by a towering wall, with the rich people residing in a city called Silver City led by the Dalini, while the poor people survives in a destroyed city and struggles for basic necessities as it was controlled by the Silver City.

Meanwhile, Guddu resides in the Silver City and works for Dalini's henchmen John, who conducts boxing matches and earns money through the bets placed by the rich people. One day, John tells Guddu to take Dimple, John's girlfriend, to a nightclub as he is busy on a meeting. Dimple gets physical with Guddu, where John catches them red-handed and buries them alive. Guddu miraculously survives and Kaizad asks him to move away to the city of poor people and meet Shiva, a combat trainer.

Guddu learns that he is actually Ganapath, a legendary saviour of the poor people, as predicted by Maharishi Dalapathi. Guddu receives combat training under Shiva and his confident Jassi, where he ultimately embraces himself as Ganapath and deceives John, Dalini and their henchmen into believing that he is on their side. Trained as an accomplished fighter, Guddu wins matches for them, while pretending to Jassi and Shiva that he is uninterested in their cause.

After securing victories in most of his matches, Guddu persuades John and Dalini's associate to bet their money on his opponent in the final match as Guddu plans to lose intentionally in the match. Guddu also convinces them to allow the poor to wager their savings on this match, where John and his associates to profit further by snatching money from the poor people, leaving them in a miserable state. However, this is Guddu's way of exacting revenge as he intends to follow a different course.

While releasing Jassi from her confinement, Guddu discreetly instructs her to encourage the poor people to place their savings on the match. Guddu executes the plan, which he shared with John, easily dominating his opponent in the first two rounds. In the third round, Guddu feigns defeat, but realises that John has placed his and Dalini's money on the opponent. Guddu stages a comeback and defeats his opponent, causing substantial losses to John and Dalini. Guddu subsequently reveals his actions on television, watched by both the poor and rich people, and confesses that Shiva is his biological father.

Guddu tells that he has given a chance for the poor people to challenge the rich people with their winnings, while donning the mantle of Ganapath. Guddu also challenges Dalini to reveal himself, where Dalini reveals himself as Guddu's doppelgänger and it is revealed that Dalini is actually a form of AI. Guddu challenges Dalini to a fight, thus hinting a sequel titled Ganapath 2: Rise of the Hero.

Development
The film was announced on 6 November 2020 by Pooja Entertainment, to be directed by Aditya Kumar starring Tiger Shroff. It was originally supposed to release in parts, and had a working title of Ganapath: Part 1, though this plan was abandoned and the film was re-titled Ganapath: A Hero is Born. Though a sequel is still teased at the ending of the film titled Ganapath: Part 2: Rise of the Hero. The film marks the collaboration of Sanon and Shroff after nine years since their Hindi film debut in Heropanti (2014). It was produced by Pooja Entertainment in association of GoodCo.

Filming
The principal photography began on 2 November 2021 in United Kingdom. In May 2022, the final schedule was held in Ladakh with some additional scenes being shot in February 2023. The film's shooting was wrapped up by August 2023.

Soundtrack
The music of the film is composed by Vishal Mishra, Amit Trivedi, White Noise Studios and Dr. Zeus. The background score is composed by Salim-Sulaiman. The first single titled "Jai Ganesha" was released on 18 September 2023 on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. The second single titled "Hum Aaye Hain" was released on 5 October 2023. On 13 October 2023, the entire album consisting was released by Zee Music Company.

Theatrical
The film was initially supposed to release on 23 December 2022, coinciding with Christmas Eve, but was later postponed and was released theatrically on 19 October 2023, during Dussehra, in Hindi, along with the dubbed versions in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada languages.

Home media
It was supposed to be telecasted on Sony Max in March 2024, but was postponed five times. It was finally telecasted on 26 May 2024.

Critical response
Ganapath received negative reviews from critics with praise for its action sequences, but criticized its script and VFX.

Bollywood Hungama gave 2.5/5 stars and wrote "Ganapath – A Hero is Born fails to impress due to a clichéd storyline, poor VFX and predictable second half." Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India gave 2.5/5 stars and wrote "In a world where the rich are getting richer and poor, poorer, Ganapath imitates our hard-hitting reality but feels like a huge potential wasted."

Avinash Lohana of Pinkvilla gave 2/5 stars and wrote "This futuristic drama headlined by Tiger Shroff and Kriti Sanon needed to do some solid work in the past before bringing it to the audience." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave 1.5/5 stars and wrote "Ganapath is painfully pea-brained pulp that makes a meal of a terribly thin storyline."

Bhavna Agarwal of India Today gave 1.5/5 stars and wrote "'Ganapath' offers absolutely no respite. If you expect it to get better in the second half as Gen Z are often heard saying ‘you are in delulu’." Hiren Kotwani of Mid-Day gave 1.5/5 stars and wrote "What makes Ganapath different from the saviour-hero films of yore is that director Bahl has tried to make it look like the desi Mad Max of sorts, albeit with unimpressive design and poor packaging".

Swetha Ramakrishnan of OTTplay gave 1.5/5 stars and wrote "Ganapath is a dated Hindi film with an identity crisis. It is a scary mish-mash of tropes “borrowed” from films like Hunger Games, Mad Max, Dune and KGF. Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave 1/5 stars and wrote "What comes as a surprise is just how terrible this film is, with practically no redeeming feature in its nearly two and half hours run-time."

Anuj Kumar of The Hindu wrote "Tiger Shroff kicks and moves the way only he can, but the Vikas Bahl film doesn’t have the chutzpah to use his talent." Monika Rawal Kukreja of Hindustan Times wrote "Watch Ganapath if you can limit your idea of watching a film to some brilliant dance and action moves, and don't expect anything beyond this."