‘Karate’ To ‘Freaky Ali’: 8 Movies Based On Lesser Known Indian Sports

Inspired by the real life character of India’s Golf champion Ali Sher who started off as a caddie and slowly and steadily became a champion. Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the titular role where he starts off as a petty conman and goes on to become a Golf champion in a short span of time.

Based on the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, this flick was a remake of the Hollywood hit Warrior released in 2011. Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra play half-brothers whereas Jackie Shroff played their drunkard father. Though the sport was reused as a backdrop in the recently released Sultan but Brothers really couldn’t match up to the former.

This Amol Gupte directorial had the sport of skating as its backbone. The film revolved around a small town boy who makes it big in skating by winning the skating championship with the support of his coach. Though skating hasn’t been such a popular sport in India but this film set the tone for many youngsters to take up the sport.

A remake of the Tamil hit Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu, Badlapur Boys is one of those lesser known sports drama which was based on Kabaddi that garnered critical acclaim. Packed with a bunch of newbie actors, the flick revolved around a teenager who win an inter-town Kabaddi championship to draw the government’s attention towards his village Badlapur which is suffering from a water crisis.

Based on stock car racing, the plot of Ta Ra Rum Pum was loosely inspired by Will Ferrell's Talladega Nights and Tony Scott's Days of Thunder, this Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji starrer had the former playing a car racer who loses everything in a car accident but again sets himself up to win the championship with the support of his family.

This Aamir Khan sports drama centred around an inter-college sports championship where the cycle race was the biggest event. Directed by Mansoor Khan, the flick just not had lilting music and brilliant performances by its cast but the last half an hour which involved the nail-biting finale of the cycle race served as the icing on the cake.

Directed and produced by Deb Mukherjee, this long forgotten Mithun Chakraborty action flick had Karate as its backdrop which revolved around two long lost brothers who are reunited because of the sport in the end. Made during the 80’s when sports based films especially, martial arts were in vogue.

Set amidst India’s first Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, this Munshi Prem Chand story was brought alive by director Satyajit Ray on screen. The story was about two friends named Mir and Mirza who were unfazed by the then prevalent situation in India and continued playing endless sessions of the game of chess. The main roles played by Saeed Jaffrey​ and Sanjeev Kumar are remembered as one of their finest performances.