Aizawl: A heart-wrenching event of 19th-century Mizoram —revolving around two lovers who were forced to withstand the tests of time after their native village was ravaged by rival chieftains —is all set to be immortalised on celluloid.
Apart from the huge cast of 400 actors in various roles, the upcoming Mizo movie, Khawnglung Run, has also been touted as one of the most expensive movies ever made in Mizoram, with a total budget of Rs10 lakh. An entire village was recreated to portray Khawnglung, where a surprise raid conducted by combined forces of several Pawi villages in 1859 left a trail of blood in the locality.
According to the movie director, Mapuia of Leitlang Pictures, the bloody attack against Khawnglung village was a result of a war between Sailo chieftains of north and south Mizoram that broke out in 1857, four years before the American Civil War.
“We built a village atop a hill, about five kilometres from Lunglei town, totally inaccessible by road. We camped there with the entire cast and crew for more than two months,” Mapuia said.
In real life, Khawnglung village is located on the top of a hill, about 145 kilometres north of Aizawl, in the present-day Lunglei district. “The real village, though uninhabited, still exists. However, as it requires walking for long hours in thick jungles, it was less expensive to build an artificial village,” the director added. Khawnglung village was topographically secured with only one entrance which was heavily guarded.
“The people of Khawnglung felt very safe as they believed no enemies could attack them as the village was accessible through only one entrance which was guarded round the clock,” said B Lalthangliana, a Mizo historian.
However, the enemies performed what everyone thought was an impossible mission — scaling the high and deathly cliffs with jungle vines. “The chieftain and his elders did not pay heed to some village women seeing movements in the cliffs that surrounded the village as they felt that only monkeys could climb there. The attack came in the wee hours of a day when the entire village was in deep sleep,” the historian added.
A number of Mizo historians have written about Khawnglung Run or Khawnglung raid with different versions on the story. “I have built the story based on six to seven authors,” said Mapuia, who is also the screenwriter, adding: “However, I preferred a sad ending over a happy one.”
What makes the story a part of modern-day Mizo folklore are the two lovers, Chala and Thangi. Chala (which has been played by popular Mizo singer Alex Lalchhuankima) was inconsolable to find that his entire village had been reduced to ashes with only mutilated bodies to greet him when he came home from a distant tour. While his families were killed in the raid, his lover (played by Zoremsangi) was taken hostage by the enemies.
The remaining part of the film recounts how the hero braved all dangers — wild beasts and enemies — to recapture his lover from across the Myanmar border. Thangi, however, died after drowning in the Tiau river that divides India and Myanmar on her way home from where she was rescued by her lover. “This is unarguably a pathbreaking movie in the Mizo film industry,” said Sangzuala Hmar, a showbiz writer, after local journalists previewed the two-hour film at the information & public relations auditorium in Aizawl on Saturday.
Hmar added: “When it comes to filmmaking, Mizoram is far behind the rest of the Northeastern states, leave alone mainland India. The state has not produced any major film in recent times. The Mizo films that we have seen are mostly zero-budget films. Therefore, Rs10 lakh is a huge budget for such a movie.”
It took nearly a year for shooting and editing the film. Apart from the artificial village, the film was shot in different places of Mizoram with 5D Mark-II and XDCam Ex cameras. The much-awaited movie will premier on August 23 in Aizawl, simultaneously with the rest of the district capitals. With English sub-titles, the producer has plans to market the film outside Mizoram, including the US.