Audience Review | Aamir Khan's Dangal or Salman Khan's Sultan: It's all about man's ego, masculine power and aggression to chase dreams

Reviews of the film Dangal are out, the film has been ranked top among all over the media. There is not much more left to speak or write about the movie. But since I am a movie aficionado just like everyone else while also being a journalist, I couldn't stop myself from putting my feelings into the writing after watching this film. 

Being Aamir Khan's movie, it was on the high note ahead of its release and got a lot of media attention. There was a kind of momentum before its release in which it left real sports star's story in the background earlier, but after it hit the theatres the film put the real story of these real sports stars back in the forefront. 

Sultan vs Dangal 

Despite being a huge fan of Salman Khan, I have no regret in saluting Aamir for his fantastic and commendable job. In fact, there is not much similar between the both movies except the topic of wrestling and few. 

Also read: Dangal Box Office collection: Aamir Khan-starrer film crosses Rs 100-crore mark, becomes first movie to collect over Rs 40 crore in a single day

Salman's Sultan was a typical bollywood drama, full with all the spicy materials that had the capacity to bring audiences into the theaters. He is also the master in this art and so was the result. Sultan had a great success on the box office.

Whereas Amir Khan's Dangal is based on a true life story of wrestler Geeta and Babita Kumari Phogat. Storywise there was nothing left for Bollywood tadka, which was not required also as the high pitch motivational songs did all the magic... Daler Mehandi's introductory song and Cyclone song were powerful enough to give goosebumps to the audience all over their body, mind and the right direction to make them hold their breath.

Dangal with 'Man Ego'

One more thing was common in both the movies and that was the fight with the ego. Ego of a man, but the way and reason to fight with this ego, was completely different. 

Also read | Dangal may release in Pakistani theaters soon after PM Nawaz Shairf's nod

Sultan talks about a man who hasn't had any goal in his life but falls in love with an ambitious girl who teaches him to dream and work hard to fulfill them. But once he wins the heart of the girl, marries her, becomes a renowned wrestler, he earns not only name, fame, game but he ego as well. Then comes a time when he loses everything and has to once again struggle and fight for his pride and win the battle against his man ego. 

Dangal is also based on a fight against ego. Ego of men and the ego of the male dominated society. Dangal express the story of Mahavir Singh Phoghat, who was also a wrestler and the champion of national level but couldn't get gold for the country at international level. He had only one wish to get gold for country through his son, but unfortunately even after all the experiments he could not get a boy child and had three daughters instead. 

Fight against all odds

This is a story of a common man who had a dream and lived his dream with his daughters not only because it was his own dream, but he persuaded this dream for the betterment of his girl children, he knew that his girls are not like other ordinary girls. He knew that they had the power and his gene within them. So he realised that his daughters are meant for the wrestling only. He did not suppress their this quality and in spite of all the social barriers he fought for the future of his daughters and fulfilled the thirst of the country to win a gold medal too. 

In a country like India where society is biased against the female child and situation of female foeticide is horrible, Geeta and Babita rose above all adversities and fought with male counterparts throughout their lives to finally fulfill the dream of their father and win gold medal for country in the Commonwealth Games. 

When Geeta won the coveted gold, she was not the only one who made India proud, rather there should also be a grand salute for Mahavir Singh Phogat for bringing up daughters like Geeta and Babita. Because how many parents are there in the world who fought with the whole society and declared themselves mad just because they dared to dream different for their children, without keeping in mind their gender, their age, their future or any other social dictates. 

I'll give it five stars on a scale of one to five.

(The views expressed in this article are the author's own)

Also read | Aamir Khan starrer 'Dangal' declared tax free in Haryana