For those who know their Indian cinema, Shatranj Ke Khilari is film-maker Satyajit Ray’s only feature film in Hindi/Urdu and also his most expensive film, employing lavish stage design and stars of both Mumbai and Western cinema. A period piece set in nineteenth-century Lucknow, capital of the state of Oudh, the film revolves around the court of the flamboyant artist-king Wajid Ali Shah against the backdrop of the East India Company’s avaricious ...
