The Ghazi Attack

Plot

The Ghazi Attack is inspired by true events from the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971. The story is about an executive naval officer of the Indian Submarine INS Karanj (S21) and his team, who remain underwater for 18 days. The film explores the mysterious circumstances under which PNS Ghazi sank off the coast of Visakhapatnam in 1971. It is an underwater tale of the courage and patriotism of the men aboard the Indian Submarine S-21 who destroyed the Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi when it ventured into Indian waters to destroy INS Vikrant. According to the Pakistani Navy, PNS Ghazi sank due to explosions caused by itself or the naval mine(s) it laid in the Bay of Bengal. However, the Indian Navy credits the destroyer INS Rajput for sinking PNS Ghazi. As of today, it is a mystery and was thus, a ripe subject for a filmmaker to base a war film on.

More so because 90 percent of the action occurs within submarines and thus under water. As such, the setting is new to the Indian audience who have rarely seen the insides of a submarine on the big screen. It's all very contained. Shot in tight angles. Close-ups of actors. Sweating, bleeding, nervous, agitated and trying to keep calm under pressure in a claustrophobic environment where one wrong move can mean either death or a full-scale war between India and Pakistan.

The movie starts with the incidents which depict East Pakistan rebelling against West Pakistan. Tapsee Pannu is a refugee. Then we are taken to Pakistani Naval headquarters. The senior most commanders discuss that they can’t let reins of E. Pakistan go. So they decide to take hold of the country again by dispatching materials to their troops via the sea route. They plan to sink INS Vikrant, a Navy ship that controls and protects the Bay of Bengal region. The Indian navy gets this information and they dispatch S21, a submarine, under the command of Cap. Ranvijay Singh (Kay Kay Menon) for surveillance. Because Singh is an aggressive soldier who believes in attacking the enemy rather than defending the territory when the enemy is close, they assign Lt. Commander Arjun Rajput (Rana Daggubati) some of the duties so that Singh cannot fire at the enemy since doing so could mean that India has declared a war on Pak. PNS GHAZI is a very advanced submarine which no Indian submarine can match. This submarine is dispatched by Pakistan to sink INS Vikrant. Days pass as S21 does the routine surveillance, but they find nothing. Then suddenly, the get a Sonar signal which comes from a sunk merchandise ship, blasted by Ghazi. Arjun goes and saves 2 survivors. Here, we are shown that there is a clash of power between Singh and Arjun about how to proceed with the mission. Singh believes that they should track down Ghazi and attack, while Arjun was ordered not to let Singh do so. Second in command Devraj many times makes peace between both of them Devraj needs both Arjun and Singh’s orders for launching torpedo but Arjun does not give his permission because of his orders. Singh then orders Devraj to conduct a drill and target Ghazi while doing so. Devraj orders the crew to do the same since the conduction of drills is under the captain. They miss by 200m and Ghazi’s captain becomes alert that S21 knows their location. He tells his crew to head towards Vishakhapatnam port at their highest speed. While going, he tells his crew to set up mines in the path so that S21 gets destroyed while it is pursuing them. S21 pursues Ghazi and realizes at the last moment that they are heading towards a trap. It changes its course but is too late and some part of it makes impacts with the mines, damaging most of the batteries, propellers and circuits of the submarine. Many of the crew die and Cap Singh dies while trying to save Arjun. Devraj is severely injured. S21 sinks to the bottom of the sea (400m). Ghazi, unable to detect its damage, assumes that it is destroyed completely. After sometime, the crew members of S21 recover and try to salvage their situation. Arjun, who is in charge of the mission now tells the crew to use compressed air to decrease their depth in sea. The crew notice that the propellers aren’t working so they can’t move anywhere except up or down. Since they cannot chase Ghazi, they decide to opt a course of action which forces Ghazi to come back to the point they are stuck at. The crew uses the vibrations of the sound of it’s crew members to blast the remaining mine (using the concept of acoustic resonance ) and wait for Ghazi as they plan to shoot a torpedo at it. As expected, Ghazi returns to check what exactly happened, but unfortunately, its captain guesses that they might be shot and changes the course of approach. This puts S21 in a problem as Ghazi is no longer in it’s shooting path but they can easily be shot at by Ghazi. 6 torpedoes fired by Ghazi miss S21 because the latter keeps on changing it’s depth in water. Ghazi runs out of torpedoes in the front region and therefore has to turn in order to fire the ones units hind region which again places it in the firing course of S21. Soon, both the submarines fire their torpedoes and while Ghazi misses its target, S21 does not, destroying PNS Ghazi,everyday

Cast

Development

PVP Cinema is producing the film. Karan Johar will distribute the Hindi version. The music is composed by K. Visual Effects handled by Eva Motion Studios.

Casting and crew

The film stars Rana Daggubati and Taapsee Pannu in the lead along with Kay Kay Menon, Satyadev Kancharana, Atul Kulkarni,Ramanuj Dubey, Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Rahul Singh, Akshay Mittal, Malyaban Lahiri and Naren Yadav. Cinematography is done by Madhi, music composed by K and editing by Sreeker Prasad.

Filming

The film shooting started on 3 January 2016.

Actual events

Indian Navy claims to have sunk the PNS Ghazi on December 4, 1971 at the Vishakhapatnam harbour when then Captain Inder Singh of INS Rajput ordered the attack upon it. However the Pakistani Navy dispute the claim; as Pakistan Navy believes the Submarine must have sunk due to it mistakenly entering its own minefield and collided with one of the mines, which resulted in the explosion.

Release

Ghazi was released worldwide on 17 February 2017. As of February 22, the film has collected ₹ 22.5 crores domestically. (all versions)

Box office

Ghazi Attack (Hindi) has grossed Rs 11.75 crore nett and Rs 11.25 crore nett. in Telugu version in the first week in India. The film's collections across India on all languages is around Rs 101 crore nett plus in first week with Tamil version grossing Rs 3 crore. Ghazi has emerged successful at the box office. The Ghazi Attack (Hindi) grossed Rs 14.75 crore nett in 10 days in India.

Ghazi grossed $539,980 [₹ 3.62 crore] in USA. The film grossed $8,812 in U.K.