''Paanch'' (English: ''Five'') is a 2003 Indian

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

written and directed by

Anurag Kashyap Anurag Kashyap (born 10 September 1972) is an Indian filmmaker and actor known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of several accolades, including four Filmfare Awards. For his contributions to film, the Government of France a ...

in his directing debut, starring

Kay Kay Menon Krishna Kumar Menon (born 2 October 1966), better known by the stage name Kay Kay Menon, is an Indian actor who works predominantly in Hindi cinema, and also in Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu cinema. Early life Menon was born in a Nair fa ...

Aditya Srivastava Aditya Srivastava (born 21 July 1968) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi films, television and theatre. He is best known for his role as Senior Inspector Abhijeet in India's longest-running television police procedural '' C.I.D.''. He has ...

Vijay Maurya Vijay Maurya is an Indian actor, writer and director who works in Hindi films and theatre. He is best known for his work in the 2019 Hindi musical film ''Gully Boy.'' Early life Maurya was born and raised in Mumbai, Maharashtra. His brother, A ...

, Joy Fernandes and

Tejaswini Kolhapure Tejaswini Kolhapure (born 1 January 1980)is an Indian super model and actress. Personal life Kolhapure was born in Mumbai in a Maharashtrian family. Her father, Pandharinath Kolhapure, is a classical singer whose family was from Kolhapur.

. The film is "loosely" based on the 1976–77

Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders The Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders were ten murders committed by Rajendra Jakkal, Dilip Sutar, Shantaram Kanhoji Jagtap and Munawar Harun Shah of Pune, India between January 1976 and March 1977. All the murderers were commercial art students at ...

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

. The film never got a theatrical or home-video release. The

Central Board of Film Certification The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is a statutory film-certification body in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. It is tasked with "regulating the public exhibition of films under the provision ...

objected to the film's violence, the depiction of drug abuse and bad language. After some cuts, the film was cleared in 2003. However, it could not be released as the producer faced problems. It then was made available through torrent websites. The film was later screened in several film festivals.

Plot

Four friends; Luke Morisson (

), Murgi (

Aditya Shrivastava Aditya Srivastava (born 21 July 1968) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi films, television and theatre. He is best known for his role as Senior Inspector Abhijeet in India's longest-running television police procedural '' C.I.D.''. He has ...

), Joy (Joy Fernandes) and Pondy (

), play together in a band along with a fifth female member named Shiuli (

). They are self-destructing youngsters. Luke, the lead singer and self-imposed leader of the pack ensures his dominance in the group by providing accommodation, drugs, and food for his wasted and broke friends. Pondy is fascinated by Shiuli who sleeps with rich guys for money. The movie revolves around a kidnapping plot gone wrong, in which the four male band members plan to kidnap another friend Nikhil (Pankaj Saraswat). Nikhil is part of the plot and agrees to get himself kidnapped to extract money out of his rich but miser father. In the process, excess of drugs and uncontrolled anger leads to the murder of Nikhil by Luke. Luke blackmails all others and ensures that nobody leaves or confides into the cops. Meanwhile, Shiuli also gets entangled in the plot. The money hungry youngsters then go on to kill the father of Nikhil and a cop (

Sharat Saxena Sharat Saxena (born 17 August 1950) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films along with Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil films. He has acted in more than 250 Bollywood films. Saxena started his career in the early 1970s and has mainly played su ...

) investigating the murder. The plot thickens with a set of betrayal and counter-betrayal leading to an interesting end.

Cast

as Luke Morrison *

as Murgi *

as Pondy * Joy Fernandes as Joy *

as Shiuli *

as Inspector Deshpande * Pankaj Saraswat as Nikhil Ranjan *

Vijay Raaz Vijay Raaz (born 5 June 1963) is an Indian actor, film director and narrator, who predominantly appears in Hindi films. He debuted with ''Bhopal Express'' (1999) and since worked in more than 90 films. His breakthrough came when he played the ...

as Anish Ranjan *

Abhinav Kashyap Abhinav Singh Kashyap (born 6 September 1974) is an Indian director, writer and actor who works predominantly in Hindi Cinema. He is the younger brother of noted director Anurag Kashyap. He is best known for directing and co writing ''Dabangg'' ...

as Police Salam

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film features music composed by

Vishal Bhardwaj Vishal Bhardwaj (born 4 August 1965) is an Indian film director, screenwriter, producer, music composer and playback singer. He is known for his work in Hindi cinema, and is the recipient of seven National Film Awards and a Filmfare Award. Bha ...

and lyrics written by

Abbas Tyrewala Abbas Tyrewala (born 15 May 1974) is an Indian film screenwriter and director. After making his mark as a screenwriter and dialogue writer in early 2000s, with award-winning films like '' Maqbool'' (2003), '' Munnabhai M.B.B.S.'' (2003), he mad ...

. The album was released by BMG Crescendo in May 2002, and marked the entry of the music publisher into the Hindi film music market.

Production

In September 1993, while Kashyap stayed at the St. Xavier's Boys Hostel, he used to hang out with Adam Avil, Eddie Avil,

Luke Kenny Luke Kenny is an Indian actor, film director, producer, music director, composer, and former VJ. He began his career as a DJ, followed by a successful stint as the first male VJ on Channel V. He gained widespread recognition for his role in th ...

and Ulysses Veyra the members of a band—Greek (later Pralay). He took copious notes on how they lead their lives—forty pages of a small notebook, and began writing the script—"in bits and pieces"—for a film that he called ''Mirage,'' but which would later become ''Paanch.'' Kashyap had seen ex-VJ Luke Kenny in a Vikram Kapadia play, and approached him with an incomplete script, but nothing came out of it.The 'Pahli Seedi'
/ref> Anurag Kashyap Interview Excerpts from the interview (in Hindi) conducted by Pravesh Bhardwaj and Ajay BrahmatmajAudacious, irreverent, yet refreshingly original
/ref> Later on, while working with Nair, he came across files related to the Joshi-Abhyankar Serial Murders that took place in Pune in 1976.Total Knockout: A Censor Punch For Paanch
/ref> He had also seen a film, ''

Fun Fun is defined by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as "Light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, or amusement; boisterous joviality or merrymaking; entertainment". Etymology and usage The word ''fun'' is associated with sports, entertaining medi ...

'', about two mentally unstable girls murdering an elderly woman. Kashyap says—

Film festival premiere

Paanch was screened at

Filmfest Hamburg FILMFEST HAMBURG is an international film festival in Hamburg, the third-largest of its kind in Germany (after Berlin and Munich). It shows national and international feature and documentary films in eleven sections. The range of the program stret ...

in 2003,

Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema Osian's-Cinefan is one of Asia's leading film-festival devoted to Asian and Arab cinema, and is part of ''Osian's Film House Division''. The festival celebrated its 10th anniversary in July 2008. After a two-year break, the 12th staging of the fe ...

as closing film in 2005,

Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) is an annual film festival held in Los Angeles, California. Established by Christina Marouda in 2003, as a nonprofit organization devoted to paving the way for a greater appreciation of Indian cinema

in 2006 and at

Jagran Film Festival Jagran Film Festival (JFF) is perhaps the world's largest travelling film festival rooted in India, conducted since 2010. The festival is a Jagran Prakashan Group initiative aimed at promoting the appreciation of the cinematic art beyond the major m ...

in 2016.

References

External links

*
Paanch
at

portal
Paanch
at

portal {{Anurag Kashyap 2003 films Unreleased Hindi-language films Indian films based on actual events Crime films based on actual events M Indian crime thriller films 2000s Hindi-language films Films directed by Anurag Kashyap Films set in 1976 Films set in 1977 Films scored by Vishal Bhardwaj Films with screenplays by Anurag Kashyap 2003 directorial debut films