The Empire has GOT it all — both cringe and binge worthy
MyReview
The Empire
Disney Hotstar
Season 1, Episodes 8
Kunal Kapur, Shabana Azmi, Drashti Dhami and others
Rated: 6/10
The problem with anything around royalty drama series is that whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, whether they try hard not to or not, they are mentally and conceptually tainted by The Game of Thrones.
Hence, in the desperate race to outdo GOT in all spheres, such shows feed on more violence, more nudity, more debauchery and more chaos.
The Empire, already smirking about the tag of being India’s GOT, kicks off with a gut-wrencher. Within the first minute, maybe even less, several limbs are severed by a flashing sword, a man is beheaded in one clean stroke and the camera gets drenched in blood as if it is in a red wine shower.
Well, Babur is in Panipat, it’s 1526 AD and there is no sign of civilised political accession. What else would you then expect?
Created by Nikhil Advani and directed by Mitakshera Kumar, this eight-episode series based on the novel Empire of The Mogul — Raiders of The North by Alex Rutherford, it’s Babur’s story from Babur’s point of view.
So you see, it can’t be anything other than a glorified version of his bloody trail in India. So, to berate it for glorifying a marauder/raider is as stupid as, well, stupid can be. So let’s just keep all the breast-beating aside and enjoy this fictional historical drama series with the mindlessness it truly deserves, just like we did with GOT.
That’s what it is in Season 1, a binge-worthy, sword-toting royal caper sleeping in intrigue and waking up in bloodbaths.For such a premise Kumar has done well to keep the sets expansive and the mood all primitively16th century. The aesthetics are meticulously woven into the drama to enhance it by all means required.
Now coming to the main character played to the hilt by a lean and mean Kunal Kapoor. From the first somewhat still presence — after a gush of blood on the battlefront — when his Man Friday is stitching his neck up with his hair strand, you know that he means business and has pledged to own the character.
In his grave, Emperor Babur may be flattered with the articulate avatar in Kapoor. Despite all the violence and the pulverisation around him, the stillness he brings to the situation exploding around him, keeps the flag of interest flying high. Kapoor does well to play the gentle and the un-gentle padshah of conquest in equal measure.
To judge him other than an obsessive conqueror who has not known life any way other than by spilling blood for something as inanimate as terrain, would be the fault of the innate crticati , the sceptics and the brigade whose Right wing quarters are full of conspiracy theories.
This is about Babur the conquered, the invader, the warrior and it lives in this jacket with realistic ease.
Where history is concerned, the series thus far tells you about Babur from age 14 to Babur at Panipat though most of the space is taken up by his battle for Samarkand and his fiercest rival Shaibani Khan played with elan by the long maned Dino Morea.
Morea sports the usual mannerisms of an incorrigible usurper who can nail up children on the crucifix with the same ruthlessness that he can behead a king and plate it out to his family.
But the real aura of royalty and power is worn by Shabana Azmi, Babur’s nanijaan Esan Dawlat. She holds fort as the major power centre in the series and Drashti Dhami’s royal looks later in the series are unable to carry the realism of her character in Shabana’s engaging and overpowering style.
But all that is not the point. Let’s just cosy up to love, hate, jealousy, intrigue and all that killing and violence to later applaud or condemn the series depending on what you like and expect from a period drama. Whatever it is, Babur will not come calling, unless it is Kunal Kapoor who wills him into the frame.
Cringeworthy or binge worthy, depends on what your violence quotient is for a web series.