It is after a very long time, that I am seeing a period film in Bengali be so beautifully portrayed. Since Uma, I am kind of developing faith in the director and actor duo Srijit and Jisshu Sengupta.

This movie is all about Jisshu, and boy does he shine. Frankly I have been watching his off-late films pretty halfheartedly because he wasn't being appealing at all with his acting chops. However, Ek Je Chilo Raja just catapaults him to a different level altogether.

He looks very much the Raja Mahendra Kumar Chaudhuri he is supposed to be, both in terms of his looks and mannerisms. He does have the physique for it, which definitely works in his favour. Also surprisingly he has managed to learn the tongue of Bangladesh very well indeed. It is a matter of credit, for getting the dialect of the other half of Bengal is not an easy task especially when you have had to speak in straight tones all your life. The other thing that is commendable about him is that he speaks Hindi very well indeed! Well there is nothing too great in being able to speak this language, but what is great is being able to hide your regionality while you speak it. People will definitely add the tone of their language in whatever language they speak, but Jisshu has garbed his Bengali roots incredibly well when he speaks fluent Hindi as his changed avatar Naga Sanyasi Sundar Das. Right from being a man who cannot turn down his sister or grandmother, to being a womanizer and directly asking a maid in his palace if she is having her periods or not, to being an absolute marksman in terms of hunting, to being a generous man when it comes to his subjects' well-being, Jisshu has done it all with panache.

Now this tale is based on a real character Raja Ramendra Kumar Chaudhuri or popularly known as the Bhawal Sanyasi since he was the Raja of the Bhawal estate. He was known for his conquests with women, a womanizer at its best. Yet he was a man who cared, not for himself but for everyone around him. He was wronged, he was very very wronged. And amidst all that he faced, there was just one point that bugged me. This point was brought forth of course, given the rational person Srijit Mukherjee is, and that is if a man is really good, then how can he be a man who stayed stooped in women like as if he is intoxicated by them? Is it that women who weren't part of the family could be treated as playthings and that this behaviour was a pardonable crime? It did appear so. However, it just irks me to see that a man who was so loved by his people, a man who worried for his wife's repute and his sister's concerns, could also randomly look up an innocent maid and tell her to come to his room at 8 p.m. Everyone does have two sides to them, a good one and a bad one as well. But this person's bad side was overlooked for the good that he did. But this bad side of him isn't a minor error in his personality, although it was considered to be so probably back in the days. Nonetheless, the man did redeem himself of this bad repute, he was a changed man after a stage in his life.

In this film, I cannot talk about anyone but Jisshu Sengupta 'cause he has shown himself in an absolutely different light this time. It was heard that he had vehemently refused to take on the makeup of a Naga Sanyas and had to put on weight before this film. Even though he was against it, being an audience I can say that he pulled it off very well indeed. The makeup in this film happens to be very crucial. Raja Ramendra Kumar Chaudhuri had unattached dangling earlobes, and since this film has stuck to the details of the original as much as possible, Jisshu had prosthetics for his earlobes but alas it was so understandable that it was an attachment to his body part. Wish the quality of it had been better. It just steals away a patch from the authenticity of the character's physicality.

I enjoyed watching the film, and it is a film where your heart will reach out.

Mine did especially when Raja Mahendra Kumar says, 'Ami Raja... amay Rajar moton morte dao.'