Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan is a bollywood feature film which stars Aamir Khan, Rachel Shelley and Gracy Singh in lead roles. The movie was released on June 15, 2001 under the banner of Aamir Khan Productions and Sony Pictures Classics. The melodious music of the film is given by famous music director, A.R. Rehman. The list of singers sung in the movie inlcudes Udit Narayan, Sukhwinder Singh, Alka Yagnik, Shankar Mahadevan, Shaan, Asha Bhonsle, Lata Mangeshkar. The movie was made in three different languages i.e. English, Hindi and Bhojpuri. The budget of the film is about Rs. 250 million. The movie became the third hindi film to be nominated for the Academy award for Best Foriegn Language. The film received critical acclaims from critics and won several awards at many bollywood award functions. The movie is set in late 19th century India and revolves around the peasants from a village who are forced to pay high taxes imposed by the Britishers.

The list of hit songs in the film is given below:

1. Ghanan ghanan ghan
2. O mitwa sun mitwa
3. Madhuban mein jo kanhaiya
4. O ri chori
5. Chale chalo
6. O paalan haare

The movie starts off with Captain Andrew Russell ( Paul Blackthorne ), who impose high taxes on villagers. The local ruler, Rajah Pooran Singh ( Kulbhushan Kharbanda ) request him to lower that taxes as the villagers are suffering from the drought or ’sukha’. But Captain Russell decides to doubles the taxes. The villagers decides to give another try and ask Rajah to speak with Russell. Captain Russell sees the young and angry Bhuvan ( Aamir Khan ) among the villager and offers to cancel the taxes of the whole province for three years if the villagers can beat his men at cricket. But the condition is that if the villgaers lose, they will have to pay triple tax then.

Bhuvan accepts this challange much to the dislike of the villagers. Bhuvan give the reason that they are not in state to pay double taxes also and therefore he grabbed the chance for a tax remission. But villgaers disagree him as no one among them has ever played cricket and it would be impossible for them to beat Britishers in this game. On the other hand, Russell’s superiors in the British Army also admonish him. Russell’s good-hearted sister Elizabeth ( Rachel Shelley ) helps Bhuvan in learning the game. How Bhuvan makes his team and convinces other villagers that he is doing the right thing? How he manages to win the match is the rest of the story.