Trailer
Plot summary
Mangte Chungneijang Kom grows up in a rice farming family in Imphal, and a boxing glove she finds in the wreckage of an air crash in Kangathei in 1991 stays with her. Her father objects to the sport, so when a fight sends her chasing a boy into a boxing gym, she keeps her visits there from him. The gym's coach, Narjit Singh, once trainer to the Asian champion Dingko Singh, hears what she wants and tells her to come for thirty days; only if she proves deserving will he teach her. She attends, telling her mother, and Singh begins her training and suggests the name Mary. To buy back the family cow she takes on a local wrestler for money, and meets the footballer Onler Kom.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mary Kom (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mary Kom was never released in Manipur, the boxer's home state, because of a ban on Bollywood films imposed by the Imphal-based separatist militant group Revolutionary Peoples Front since 2000; unauthorised DVDs and VCDs of the film flooded the state instead.
- Priyanka Chopra was cast as Mary Kom in the face of controversy, with critics saying an actress from Northeast India would be better suited; director Omung Kumar wanted a big star with wider reach to tell Kom's story to a larger audience.
- Professional boxers were hired to film the boxing sequences for a natural, convincing look, and Priyanka Chopra was hurt several times; she said the real boxers could not fake a punch and had to really hit her.
- Mary Kom became the first Hindi film to be screened on the opening night of the Toronto International Film Festival when it premiered there in September 2014.
- To make Priyanka Chopra look exactly like Mary Kom, the makers tried prosthetic makeup, including a test in the United States with heavier eyelids for a more East-Asian look, but the result did not appeal and the prosthetics would not hold during boxing scenes.
- While filming a market sequence in Manali, more than ten thousand people gathered and the crowd became uncontrollable when Priyanka Chopra stepped out of her van; the shoot was cancelled and the whole crew had to leave.
- The contract for the film allowed the depiction of Mary Kom's life only up to 2008, so her fifth World Boxing Championship win and the London Olympics were left out; at the time of signing she had not even qualified for the Olympics.
- Mary Kom marks Priyanka Chopra's Hindi playback singing debut: she provided her vocals for the song "Chaoro", a Meiteilon lullaby.
