''Mishar Rahasya'', marketed as ''Mishawr Rawhoshyo'', () is a 2013 Indian

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

-language

action-adventure film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as ...

co-written and directed by

Srijit Mukherji Srijit Mukherji (born 23 September 1977) is an Indian film director and screenwriter who predominantly works in Bengali cinema. His regular collaboration with veteran actor Prosenjit Chatterjee brought him into the limelight. His first featur ...

. Produced by

Shrikant Mohta SVF Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian film production and distribution company, founded by Shrikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni in 1995. Apart from producing and distributing Bengali films in West Bengal, Bangladesh, Assam and Tripura, SVF als ...

and Mahendra Soni under the banner of

Shree Venkatesh Films SVF Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian film production and distribution company, founded by Shrikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni in 1995. Apart from producing and distributing Bengali films in West Bengal, Bangladesh, Assam and Tripura, SVF a ...

, the film is based on the 1984 novel of the same name by

Sunil Gangopadhyay Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly (September 7, 1934 – October 23, 2012) was an Indian poet, novelist, short story writer, and critic. He played a key role in modernizing Bengali poetry and co-founded the 1953 Avant-garde, avant-gra ...

. It stars

Prosenjit Chatterjee Prosenjit Chatterjee (born 30 September 1962) is an Indian actor and producer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading actors of modern Bengali cinema. He predominantly works in Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali cinema. He is the son of Bollyw ...

Kakababu Kakababu, or Raja Roy Chowdhury, is a fictional adventurer created by Bengali people, Bengali author Sunil Gangopadhyay. The series debuted in the 1971 Puja issue of Anandamela, Anandamela magazine with ''Bhoyonkor Sundor'', and quickly became ...

and

Aryann Bhowmik Aryann Bhowmik (born 1992) is a Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali film actor is best known for his work in the 2011 Bengali language, Bengali film ''Chalo Paltai''. His acting has made a mark in the Telugu cinema, Tollywood arena. Apart from film ...

as Shontu, alongside an

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that comprises many principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to the po ...

Indraneil Sengupta Indraniel Sengupta is an Indian actor and model who works in Hindi and Bengali films and television. Early Life Sengupta was born on 8 September 1974 in Assam, India, to a Bengali Hindu family. He completed his education from Scottish Churc ...

Rajit Kapoor Rajit Kapur (born 22 May 1963) is an Indian film and theatre actor and director. He is known for his portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi in the 1996 film, '' The Making of the Mahatma'' for which he won the National Film Award for Best Actor. Other n ...

, Rajesh Sharma,

Swastika Mukherjee Swastika Mukherjee (born 13 December 1980) is an Indian actress who mainly appears in Bengali and Hindi films and television. She is the daughter of actor Santu Mukhopadhyay. Throughout her career, she received various accolades including fou ...

, Sujan Neel Mukherjee and

Tridha Chowdhury Tridha Choudhury is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Hindi, Bengali and Telugu films and series. She won the title, ''Clean & Clear Times of India Freshface 2011''. Her first movie was '' Mishawr Rawhoshyo'' in 2013, directed by ...

. The plot revolves around a

hieroglyphic Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

trail that leads Kakababu and his nephew Shontu to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and underneath a

pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

. The film was officially announced in September 2012, marking Srijit Mukherji's third collaboration with Prosenjit Chatterjee.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...

commenced in January 2013 and ended in August 2013. Major parts of the film were shot in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

with a sporadic schedule, with portions shot in

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

and

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

predominantly.

Indraadip Dasgupta Indraadip Dasgupta (born 17 January 1973) is an Indian composer whose range of music is well known in various Bengali Films. In 2017 he worked in ''Begum Jaan (2017 film), Begum Jaan'', for which he composed the background score. Film direc ...

composed its music, with lyrics penned by

Srijato Srijato Bandyopadhyay is an Indian poet of the Bengali language. He won the Ananda Puroskar in 2004 for his book ''Udanta Sawb Joker: All Those Flying Jokers''. In 2014, he won the Filmfare Awards East 2014, Filmfare Awards East for Best Lyrici ...

. The cinematography and editing of the film were handled by Soumik Halder and Bodhaditya Banerjee respectively. ''Mishawr Rawhoshyo'' was released theatrically on 11 October 2013 alongside '' Rangbaaz'' (2013), coinciding with

Durga Puja Durga Puja (ISO 15919, ISO: , ), also known as Durgotsava or Shaaradotsava, is an annual festival originating in the Indian subcontinent which pays homage to the Hinduism, Hindu goddess Durga, and is also celebrated because of Durga's victo ...

. It opened along with the dubbed versions in

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, English and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

. It was a blockbuster at the box office and was the second highest-grossing films of 2013, with highly positive reviews. It gained a strong

cult following A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The latter is often called a cult classic. A film, boo ...

eventually among the audiences. Critics were appraisals of the songs, particularly ''Kakababur gaan'' sung by

Rupam Islam Rupam Islam (born 25 January 1974) is an Indian singer-songwriter, music composer, and writer. He is the lead vocalist of the Bengali rock band Fossils. Outside of his rock music work, Islam has also contributed to several Bengali film pro ...

, the direction by Srijit Mukherji and action sequences designed by Judo Ramu. It is the first installment in Mukherji's ''Kakababu'' film series, followed by ''

Yeti Obhijaan ''Yeti Abhijan'' () is a 2017 Indian Bengali-language action-adventure film co-written and directed by Srijit Mukherji. Produced by Shrikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni under the banner of Shree Venkatesh Films, the film is based on the 1980 novel ...

'' (2017) and ''

Kakababur Protyaborton ''Kakababur Pratyabartan'', marketed as ''Kakababur Protyaborton'' () is an Indian Bengali-language action-adventure film directed by Srijit Mukherji and produced by Shrikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni. It is based on a Bengali adventure novel b ...

'' (2022).

Plot

''Mishawr Rawhoshyo'' starts with

and his nephew Shontu smiling after watching news informing of the imminent overthrow of the dictatorship in

. The film rewinds into a flashback. It is 2010. Kakababu is contracted by Egyptian businessman Al Mamun to decipher the meanings of hieroglyphic symbols that his teacher, Mufti Muhammad, had drawn on a piece of paper supposedly during his sleep. Muhammad is terminally ill and is about to grant his last wish while he is being treated in

. Mamun thinks that the symbols are the key to locating Mufti Muhammad's

will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...

which will describe where to find treasures Mufti Muhammad had acquired during his tenure as a political leader and revolutionary. However, Kakababu is convinced that the symbols have a different meaning and they are very unusual. Mufti Muhammad symbolically requests Kakababu to verify something, a very unusual last wish. Meanwhile, a war of rivalry ensues between Mamun and Hani Al Qadi, another of Mufti Muhammad's disciples (and a rival of Mamun) who accuses Mamun of stealing a secret that isn't rightfully his. While in

, there was an attempt to murder Kakababu, in which Kakababu was injured. Kakababu took the challenge to uncover the truth; he and his nephew Shontu head to

where they are drawn into the vortex of the mystery. Kakababu gets kidnapped by Al Qadi's men which sets off a chain of events, culminating in a climax under a pyramid. Inside the pyramid, Kakababu discovers the lost mummy of an Egyptian queen with the help of the hieroglyphics code written by Mufti Muhammad. The present-day political turmoil in Egypt subtly reverberates. At the end, Kakababu gives Hani Al Qadi the coded message written inside the coffin of the mummy and wishes him good luck for his upcoming revolution to free Egypt from the corrupt dictator Jashni Mubarak (fictionalized

Hosni Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011 and the 41st Prime Minister of Egypt, prime minister from 1981 to ...

Cast

Development

Srijit Mukherji licensed the first three books in the ''Kakababu'' series with the intent to produce a film every other year starring Prosenjit Chatterjee as Kakababu, his only choice for the role. Filming took place in

Cairo, Egypt Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

and

in early 2013, with Chatterjee stating that Mukherji was updating the character to be more contemporary. Chatterjee also commented that, although they had not changed Ganguly's character too much, that "lookwise he is a modern Kakababu." The movie also features

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

's famous poem

Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo "Where the mind is without fear" () is a poem written by 1913 Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore before India's independence. It represents Tagore's vision of a new and awakened India. The original poem was published in 1910 and was included in th ...

Soundtrack

The soundtrack consists of six tracks composed by

with lyrics by

. It was released on 2 October 2013 by the cast and crew in the Oberoi Grand Hotel in

Critical response

Sutapa Singha writing for ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

'' gave a rating of and said the album is like an audio window to the gripping thriller on-screen.

Reception

''Mishawr Rawhoshyo'' garnered mixed to generally positive reviews from critics. Gautam Chakraborty of ''

Anandabazar Patrika ''Anandabazar Patrika'' is an Indian Bengali-language daily newspaper owned by the ABP Group. Its main competitors are ''Bartaman'', '' Ei Samay'', '' Sangbad Pratidin'', " Aajkal", " Jago Bangla", " ganashakti" and " dainik Statesman". Histo ...

'' rated it . Dippanita Mukhopadhay Ghosh of ''

Ebela ''Ebela'' ( Bengali: এবেলা) was a Bengali tabloid targeted primarily at young Bengali readers of West Bengal. It is the second Bengali daily published by ABP Group after ''Anandabazar Patrika''. The 24-page tabloid was being circul ...

'' rated it .

Awards and nominations

Sequel

The sequel ''

'' was released in 2017. The second sequel ''

'' was released in 2022.

References

External links

Official Facebook page
* {{Kakababu 2013 films 2010s adventure films 2010s action adventure films Bengali-language Indian films 2010s Bengali-language films 2013 action films 2013 thriller films Indian children's films Indian detective films Films based on Indian novels Indian action thriller films Indian action adventure films Indian martial arts films Films based on works by Sunil Gangopadhyay Fictional portrayals of the West Bengal Police Films directed by Srijit Mukherji Films scored by Indradeep Dasgupta Films set in Egypt Films set in Kolkata Films set in Delhi Films shot in Egypt Films shot in Kolkata Films shot in Delhi Films about the Research and Analysis Wing