1962 The War in the Hills Review: Goes Downhill from Frame 1!

1962 The War in the Hills Review: Directed By Mahesh Manjrekar, this Abhay Deol starrer is Disney+ Hotstar’s new original War-Drama series. Released on the 26th of February, this is a ten-episode series that deals with the Sino-Indian War with multiple stories woven into its backdrop. The story recounts to 1962, which highlights the valor and courage shown by 125 Indian Soldiers against 3000 Chinese Soldiers at the Galway Valley and Rezang La.

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As people who take interest in Indian History, we were very excited to delve into 1962 The War in the Hills but were thoroughly disappointed. The “prologue” or the opening scenes of the series failed to get us interested and were completely dull. A disclaimer by the makers puts the fact that all characters, irrespective of their nationality will be speaking Hindi or English for ease of understanding.

However, this just takes away from the authenticity and character development. The dialect picked up by all characters is abysmal, they do not sound like people coming from the northern states, and the village setups resemble that of east Uttar Pradesh and not Haryana.

The story of 1962 The War in the Hills begins with Major Suraj Singh (Abhay Deol), who is leaving his wife (Mahie Gill) and teenage daughter (Sammaera Jaiswal), to report for his national duty. Along with the help of a local girl Rimpa (Rochelle Rao), Abhay Deol and his company collect distressing intelligence of a Chinese Military Buildup on the Ladakh border. This is where the story begins, with all supporting characters being introduced in a jumbled-up manner, with none leaving an impact on you.

To be brutally honest, if we weren’t writing this review we would have skipped this entire series and treated ourselves with the reruns of our favorite shows. The staggering pace, over/underacting, and the weird dialogue delivery adds to the pain one feels while watching this show. The story of the 1962 Sino-Indian war, is something that the media industry can explore and present many untold stories, making this cliched way of storytelling boring for the audience. Furthermore, the overcomplication of sub-plots or backstories of the soldiers takes away from the main plot that added to our frustrations while watching this war-drama series.

Coming to the actors, Abhay Deol completely misses the mark with this character and shows no finesse with it. Many dialogues seemed forced, and the range of his character will seem flat. It was surprising to see such a lackluster performance from him as we hardly see him being a misfit. His pairing with Mahie Gill got us excited for this series when the cast was announced, but that too fell flat. Mahie Gill as Shagun is the narrator of this story and honestly comes off as annoyed whilst narrating it.

Sumeet Vyas, cast as a soldier/single father, also fails to shine in this series and is given very little to work with. Rochelle Rao’s character is so heavily dubbed that her acting comes across as labored. Akash Thosar also seems to be in the wrong place with a very underwhelming performance.

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The character that somewhat delivers a strong performance in the series is Meiyang Chang as the Chinese Army Officer. His portrayal seems close to reality, and his dialogues do not seem overly edited, unlike his fellow castmates. Annup Sonii, in his brief appearance, also does justice to the character given to him.

The dialogues seem very cringeworthy, and the screenplay amateurish. Also, the background score does very little to invoke patriotism within you. The final nail in this coffin was a weirdly paced and portrayed battle-scene. Hence, we will suggest you skip 1962 The War in the Hills and maybe watch a documentary on this war if you are interested. Watch the show on Disney+ Hotstar here.

Rating – 1.5/5 | Grade – D+

Images via Disney+ Hotstar YouTube