CAST: Kunal Kapoor, Dino Morea, Shabana Azmi, Drashti Dhami, Aditya Seal, Sahher Bambba, Imaad Shah
DIRECTED BY: Mitakshara Kumar
BLOOD AND GORE TRIGGER WARNING. Scenes of blood, killing, and body parts.
BLUF
In The Empire, ( based on the novel series Empire of the Moghul by Alex Rutherford ) we follow Babur (1483-1530), founder of the Moghul Empire and the first Moghul emperor of the Indian subcontinent.
Over eight episodes, he battles his rival Shaibani Khan over Ferghana and Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan, then takes Kabul in Afghanistan, and eventually defeats Ibrahim Lodhi to become Emperor of Hindustan. Throughout the series, he fights multiple battles and ponders timeless questions about power, love, loyalty, merit, and succession.https://www.youtube.com/embed/9W9gmmyUucI
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
If only Babur’s father, Umar Shaikh Mirza, didn’t need a hand from his mother; the ruthless Queen Mother let Babur fall from grace during his battles with Shaibani Khan as well as a more immediate natural disaster.
The teenaged Babur succeeds his father and loses his homeland, Ferghana, but acquires Samarkand through a daring raid.
Eventually, Babur gives up Samarkand to the besieging forces of Shaibani Khan, a painful decision illustrating the tension between his “soft heart” and the cold, Machiavellian advice from his grandmother and sister – a theme which runs throughout The Empire.
After the exile, alliances, and battles, Babur finds himself back at Samarkand, but he loses it again. He marries power in Kabul, Afghanistan, then follows his “destiny” to take Hindustan. With the aid of gunpowder and cannons, he defeats Lodhi, the Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat in 1526, and becomes emperor.
Now the question: who will succeed Babur? Who will be the second Moghul ruler of Hindustan?
Babur’s sister, Khanzada (played by Drashti Dhami), demonstrates she has the will to swim with sharks. Back at Samarkand, she married Shaibani Khan, fooled him into believing she was pregnant and told Babur how to enter the city surreptitiously. Then she watched soldiers cut Shaibani Khan to ribbons. Khanzada vies with Shabana Azmi’s Queen Mother as the most ruthless character of the series.
In addition to his relatives, Babur must also contend with the schemes of his wives. The first, betrothed via love marriage to his advisor’s daughter, produced a son, as did his marriage to a member of the ruling family in Kabul.
These strong women don’t help matters when it’s time to decide, but that’s when the story is most interesting. And the last five minutes give us quite a twist!
The sets of The Empire impressed this reviewer immensely, despite some poor special effects. The lighting and decor were sumptuous and spectacular. The main characters were interesting, if not always completely developed, but minor characters came across as cutouts more so than people.
The Empire was a feast – sometimes bloody, sometimes wild, sometimes philosophical – one which moved through its multiple courses crisply. The filmmakers may have nipped and tucked historical truth to tell their story, but that’s what TV and movies do if they’re not documentaries.
If you like historical dramas and enjoy the eternal questions surrounding power and ambition, you will most likely enjoy The Empire.
WHAT WE LOVED
The interior scenes – lighting, architecture, and design – were magnificent
Kunal Kapoor’s performance
The eternal questions of how to be a king
The twist at the end
The strong, ruthless women juxtaposed with Babur and his Hamlet-like hesitations
WHAT WE MISSED
The battles – we understand, people get cut in half and stabbed in the throat
Some of the minor characters’ development
