Bandit Queen

India 1994 (subtitles)
119 minutes
Directed by Shekhar Kapur
Leading players - Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey & Anirudh Agrawal

Synopsis

India 1968. Eleven year old Phoolan Devi (Seema Biswas), the daughter of a low caste village family, is forced to marry a man over twice her age. He takes her to his village where he brutally rapes her. Phoolan flees back to her parent's home where she suffers further abuse from the village men, who hold her in contempt because of her low caste. When caught resisting the advances of the son of a high caste village leader, Thakur (Raj Kumar Kamie), Phoolan is accused of enticing him and is beaten mercilessly by the villagers. The village elders ex-communicate her and she is sent to a cousin where she incurs the wrath of his jealous wife.

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On returning to the village Phoolan is implicated in a theft. She is jailed, where she is raped again. Thakur bails her out in an attempt to enslave her, but she refuses to be subjugated. To be rid of her, Thakur's family have her abducted by a local gang leader, Gaijar (Anirudh Agrawal), who rapes and tortures her. Gaijar is killed by a rival, Vikram (Nirmal Pandey), who takes over the gang and is the first man to treat Phoolan with respect. Thus Phoolan Devi embarks on a career of crime and revenge which was to shake India.