Keep your date with the charm­ing last king of Pun­jab -Ma­haraja Duleep Singh, called Black Prince by his care­taker Dr. John Lo­gin. He will meet at you at a the­atre near you and beckon you to re­claim the Sikh king­dom snatched from him by chi­canery and de­ceit by the British.

Hereto­fore, no Bol­ly­wood or Hol­ly­wood movie has had such a reach on the ba­sis of a story with a his­toric Sikh char­ac­ter. The Black Prince has bro­ken all records and is on the verge of cre­at­ing more mile­stones when it hits a few hun­dred screens glob­ally. In Pun­jab alone it will be screened in 70 the­atres. I bet there will be one not very far from you.

In a de­tailed his­tor­i­cal re­view, in which she talks to pro­ducer Jas­jeet Singh and Di­rec­tor Kavi Raj, Cin­ema critic Dana Gee of The Van­cou­ver Sun says that “The Black Prince re­veals truths about Royal Sikh his­tory“

In a dra­matic scene of the movie, Jin­dan tells Ma­haraja Duleep Singh, “They are sol­diers of the Sikh Raj, they need a leader.” To­tally en­am­oured by the movie, Jour­nal­ist Gur­preet Singh Sa­hota says “this di­a­logue keeps re­ver­ber­at­ing in my brain since I saw the spe­cial screen­ing of the movie in Van­cou­ver.” Emo­tions take over and he sur­mises that “every frame of the movie will rat­tle you into think­ing about this his­toric film.”

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Sikh poet, Gajin­der Singh re­marks, “Af­ter read­ing Face­book posts and re­views, I think The Black Prince has the po­ten­tial to re­vive a thought, may be a move­ment about Sikh free­dom. Oh Black Prince, you are not a Prince, but a king. Anx­iously wait­ing to see the movie.”

Jagdeesh Mann has cap­tured the essence of the film mak­ers when he says, “To be the “last king” of any­thing means you left this world ei­ther a leg­end or a tragic fig­ure. Ma­hara­jah Duleep Singh, the fi­nal monarch of the Pun­jab king­dom, who was forcibly sep­a­rated from his fam­ily as a child, dis­pos­sessed of the Koh-i-noor di­a­mond, con­verted to Chris­tian­ity as a teenager, died a pen­ni­less, bro­ken man in Paris, and is to­day buried in Eng­land, clearly falls into the lat­ter cat­e­gory. But just as some within Eng­land’s Sikh com­mu­nity are seek­ing to ex­hume his re­mains for re­turn to the Pun­jab, so are oth­ers work­ing at re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing his vic­tim legacy.”

Every news­pa­per worth its name across the world, es­pe­cially where the Sikh Di­as­pora is over­whelm­ingly pre­sent has done a re­view. The Los An­ge­les Times talks about how, “Duleep Singh’s wish to re­turn to In­dia, re­claim his king­dom and re­con­nect with his lost Sikh faith does­n’t go as planned and makes for a less-than-tri­umphant tale.”

“Kavi Raz’s biopic sets course to res­cue Duleep Singh from the for­got­ten re­cesses of Eng­lish and In­dian his­tory. For the writer-di­rec­tor and his fel­low pro­duc­ers, The Black Prince is clearly a pas­sion pro­ject; the pe­riod piece is scripted in a mix of Eng­lish and Pun­jabi, show­cases an in­ter­na­tional cast, and fea­tures de­tail-ori­ented sets of Vic­to­rian Eng­land.”

The Her­ald Mel­bourne says, Singh’s story is a tragic re­minder of the still per­va­sive ef­fects of British colo­nial­ism, and his late-life at­tempt to re­claim his Sikh her­itage and em­pire may speak to those strug­gling to stay con­nected with their roots. 

Jagdeesh Mann writ­ing in The Geor­gia Straight says, Di­rec­tor “Kavi Raz’s biopic sets course to res­cue Duleep Singh from the for­got­ten re­cesses of Eng­lish and In­dian his­tory. For the writer-di­rec­tor and his fel­low pro­duc­ers, The Black Prince is clearly a pas­sion pro­ject; the pe­riod piece is scripted in a mix of Eng­lish and Pun­jabi, show­cases an in­ter­na­tional cast, and fea­tures de­tail-ori­ented sets of Vic­to­rian Eng­land.”

He fur­ther says that, “The film is not song-and-dance Bol­ly­wood, nor does it fall into the Pun­jabi-lan­guage genre which is bloated these days with slap­stick come­dies. Like the re­cent Os­car nom­i­nated Lion, The Black Prince is part of a new wave of film and tele­vi­sion con­tent ca­pa­ble of gen­er­at­ing box of­fice rev­enue do­mes­ti­cally and in­ter­na­tion­ally.”

While the world ac­knowl­edges the spirit of the movie, do not miss the beau­ti­ful songs and the soul-stir­ring mu­sic.  Sung by Satin­der Sar­taj, Mi­tar Pyare Nu en­dears you to the soul of the movie.

Satin­der Sar­taaj, Sha­bana Azmi, So­phie Stevens, Ja­son Fle­myng, Amanda Root, David Es­sex and Keith Duffy star in the film which has had high rat­ings at var­i­ous film fes­ti­vals last year.

So be ready for the first day-first show.