I have seen ads for this film, which apparently will be in selected theaters in this country, not a wide release. It will be in a theater about thirty miles from me and I plan on going next Wednesday, when it will have two showings. The movie will be subtitled, although in some places it says it will be dubbed.
I was interested in seeing it, but the trailer from my perspective was pretty poor. If you do see it, please leave a review!
Seconded.
If you would like to watch a very creative, amusing, unconventional, and amusing view of the Ramayana from the woman’s POV, I highly recommend Sita Sings the Blues (2008) by Nina Paley. If you don’t belive me, here’s what Roger Ebert (the real guy, when he was alive) said about it:
I was enchanted. I was swept away. I was smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. It brings together four entirely separate elements and combines them into a great whimsical chord.
Paley became an anti-copyright activist in the course of making the film, because she wanted to use songs from the 1920s by Annette Hanshaw, and was shocked to find that they were still under copyright and that she would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the right to include them in the film. You can read all about that battle here.
As a result, Sita is now CC0, copyright-free, so you can watch it for free and do whatever you want with it.
Enjoy.
Never mind, off topic.
YouTube’s Corridor Crew has a discussion of the special effects in The Ramayana, and point out that the producer of the film is also the head of the SFX studios for the movie.
So this movie could be mainly a vehicle for special effects.
(tried to post the link but discourse would not allow me)
What a great recommendation, bookmarked.
Is it this movie?
I doubt I’ll see it in the theater, but definitely a must-watch once it streams. It’s one of those foundational stories that everyone should be familiar with, similar to the Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the story of King David.
I also highly recommend Sita Sings the Blues, both the movie and the album. It’s a beautiful mix of classical mythology, feminism, bluesy jazz, and electronic Indian music.
It’s 2:46 minutes, so I think I’ll wait until it’s on one of my premium movie channels. Sometimes I need an “intermission” when a movie is that long.
Bollywood movies often do have intermissions.
Looking forward to this, will report!
Oh if i dp get the tickets I will report on what I think of it.
I was rather surprised when I told my sister I was thinking of seeing this movie she asked what the Ramayana is. Not that I am an expert but I kind of thought she would understand what it is, even if not knowing all about it.
I kind of figured effects would be like that so I don’t mind.
Did you mean 2 hours 46 minutes, or 246 minutes?
He means the former, but I do want to point out to everyone that this is only part one.
Yeah, the Ramayana is called an epic for a reason! Several reasons in fact, but length is definitely one of them.
I’m curious about this, about why you would expect your sister to have any familiarity with the Ramayana. Has she previously shown an interest in South Asian cultures?
What I am getting at is to wonder at the expectation that
Why? Do you expect all South Asians to be familiar with The Odyssey (especially leaving aside residual British influences)?
Well, as far as ancient global epics go, I’d agree that most people should be familiar with a wider range of them than they are, even if I don’t necessarily expect them to be so.
Yes, on the list of “ancient global epics I think everyone should be familiar with” I’d put Gilgamesh, the Five Books of Moses, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the New Testament, Beowulf, the Popol Vuh, and (for some value of “ancient”) the Shahnameh, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Epic of Sundiata, and a Norse saga though I can’t decide which one.
Not “familiar” in the sense of necessarily having read them all, but having heard of them and having some idea what they’re about, so you can decide if you want to go see a massive movie version of one of them.
Um … “she” LOL
Although I did meet exactly one male student whose mother decided to name him Jasmine. He’ll probably end up as an extreme fighter or some such in an effort to prove his manhood.
Gah! Misread the avatar, wasn’t even looking at the name, very sorry about that.
No prob, I was just messing with you. 
I admire your erudition, but you have pretty high expectations. I graduated from a Great Books school, and of the works on your list, I have read all (or most) of three (the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid), parts of both books of the Bible, heard of four (Gilgamesh, the Ramayana, Beowulf, and Norse sagas) and never heard of the rest before reading this thread.