Viacom18 Studios has finally debuted the first trailer for Laal Singh Chaddha, the long-awaited official Bollywood remake of the Oscar-winning Forrest Gump. The film's trailer was released in conjunction with the Indian Premier League final on Monday. Aamir Khan, who leads the film's cast, revealed that he spent nearly a decade-and-a-half working on the film – first, securing the rights, then putting it together during the pandemic. The original film was directed by Robert Zemeckis and won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Khan plays the titular Laal Singh Chaddha, a Sikh man modeled after Tom Hanks’ iconic character, Forrest Gump. The Laal Singh Chaddha trailer also reveals extended flashbacks sequences in which a young Laal is told to live life on his own terms by his mother, played by Mona Singh. This is just one of the several similarities that the Hindi film has with the original, which was based on a novel by Winston Groom.
The nearly three-minute trailer introduces us to the differently-abled young Laal, who is mocked by his peers for wearing leg braces and having a simplistic outlook towards life. It also teases the epic journey that Laal subsequently goes on, meeting important historical figures, and running cross-country while bumping into fascinating new characters along the way.
Like the original film, Laal Singh Chaddha appears to feature the symbolic feather. Not only that, the trailer ends with a variation of the iconic “Life is like a box of chocolates” line. In the remake, however, Laal’s mother’s metaphor doesn’t involve sweets at all. She compares life to a “golgappa,” which is a savoury snack eaten across the country in different forms.
Khan, who has a reputation of being the thinking man’s movie star, appears to be attempting quite an outward performance, peppered with noticeable ticks and exaggerated speech patterns. Because the character is a Sikh man, his Hindi has a broad Punjabi twang to it. His performance in scenes with his illustrious co-star, Kareena Kapoor Khan, also has a rather animated quality to it.
Khan is among the country’s biggest box office draws; but while he is the star of the highest-grossing Indian film worldwide, Dangal, he is also trying to bounce back after the infamous flop of his last starring vehicle, the action-adventure Thugs of Hindostan. He is perhaps best known to Western audiences for having starred in the Oscar-nominated period epic Lagaan.
Laal Singh Chaddha is written by Atul Kulkarni, with the original film’s Oscar-winning Eric Roth also getting a credit. Directed by Advait Chandan and also starring Naga Chaitanya, the film is slated for an August 11 theatrical release, just in time for the lucrative Indian Independence Day holiday on August 15.
Watch the trailer for Laal Singh Chaddha below: