Manikarnika – The Queen of Jhansi, the Kangana Ranaut-starrer, has finally got a release date. The film, helmed by Telugu director Krish and produced by Zee Studios and Kamal Jain, will release on January 25, 2019.
The movie about the rebellion of 1857 features Kangana Ranaut as the Queen of Jhansi – Rani Laxmi Bai. It was earlier scheduled to release on August this year. This is the second movie in Bollywood that talks about the 1857 revolt, after the Ketan Mehta-directed Mangal Pandey: The Rising which starred Aamir Khan.
On the 160th death anniversary of Rani Laxmi Bai in June, the makers of the movie had shared a first look poster of the movie captioned, “Remembering one of the bravest women that ever lived.”
The teaser of the movie is scheduled to be unveiled on August 15. The movie had earlier ran into a controversy after a few fringe outfits claimed that the film misrepresents their queen. Screenwriter K.V. Vijayendra Prasad was forced to issue a clarification stating, “No need to worry about Manikarnika as I have portrayed her in the most respectable way. She is a warrior who fought against the British. She is my favourite woman leader. I have grown up reading about her. So, I will always portray her in an inspirational way.”
Kangana, a three-time National Award winner, was last seen in Simran that released earlier this year and had won rave reviews for her portrayal of the titular character. She joins the likes of Vidya Balan and Rani Mukherjee who have been picking movies that are headlined by women.
Manikarnika is the latest in a slew of biopics to come out of Bollywood. Recently Bollywood released Sanju, a biopic on one of their own – Sanjay Dutt and Soorma about the former India hockey captain Sandeep Singh. Other biopics that are in the pipeline, include the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Super 30 and Akshay Kumar-starrer Mogul that talks about the life of Gulshan Kumar.
