Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte-starrer Padman trailer is out and its compelling. Judging by it, the movie, set to release on January 26, surely seems promising. For Akshay Kumar, who’s mostly seen stalking romancing actresses on screen or doing action-packed movies, Padman definitely looks like an experiment worth trying. And perhaps, Akshay would be able to justice to the role. Same cannot be said for Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte.
Unlike the Padman poster, which received criticism for not featuring women, the trailer looks more or less balanced but if the movie is about a man who revolutionised the lives of women, we cannot complain much.
Padman is the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, the real Padman, who made an effort to generate awareness about menstrual hygiene, (a globally taboo subject) and made low-cost sanitary napkins for women. And with that we come to Phullu, which released in June 2017. We’re sure many of you don’t even remember anything about it but the movie had a similar storyline (although it didn’t mention Arunachalam Murugunantham’s name anywhere).
Also read : Phullu official trailer release: Welcome ‘Phullu’, another Padman in town apart from Akshay
Phullu /Image Source: The Indian Express
Critically acclaimed Phullu was a low-budget movie with a low-profile star cast and thanks to low-key promotions and the Censor Board’s ‘Adult’ certificate, it failed to pull in the crowds. A movie with a strong social message went unnoticed because something as natural as menstruation was deemed inappropriate for a certain section of population.
With Padman, Akshay Kumar is planning to make the same point Sharib Hashmi was trying to make in Phullu. We totally appreciate the fact that Bollywood is experimenting with a subject like menstruation and breaking stereotypes. But we cannot deny that two movies dealing with exactly the same subject are being received in such a contrasting manner.
Coming back to the trailer, the title song ‘Pad Man Mad Man’ is peppy and complements everything taking place onscreen. And it instantly reminds you of the distinctive style of Amit Trivedi, who is the music director of the movie. While dialogues like ‘ Big man, strong man, not making country strong; woman strong, mother strong, sister strong, country strong’ and ‘Half hour man bleeding like woman, they straight dying’ are deliberate, funny but come from a sort of awareness that the real Pad Man, Arunachalam actually went through.
Watch the trailer:
Also read: Twinkle Khanna has a motive behind Akshay Kumar-starrer Padman beyond box office performance
