Introduction

P.O.W. – Bandi Yuddh Ke is an Indian political thriller television series developed by Nikkhil Advani, and is loosely based on the Israeli drama Hatufim.

The series premiered 07 November 2016 on Star Plus.

The show was featured at MAMI film fest followed by a talk with Gideon Raff, who developed Hatufim and served as a consultant for this series.

• Originally aired in Israel in 2010 as Prisoners of War, aka Hatufim.
• Adapted into the eight seasons and 96 episodes of the acclaimed series Homeland for Showtime in the United States.
• In Russia it was adapted into the TV series Rodina in 2015.

Outline

After seventeen years in captivity, two soldiers, who seem to share a dark secret, return to their families. The two families try to pick up where they left off, while a government agent tries to expose their dark secret. Meanwhile, the prisoners of war (POW’s) try to acclimatise to the environment that they left 17 years ago. The government agent tries several methods to expose these POWs but ends up in trouble.

Cast

• Amrita Puri as Harleen Kaur.
• Sandhya Mridul as Nazneen Khan.
• Purab Kohli as Naib Subedar Sartaaj Singh.
• Satyadeep Mishra as Squadron Leader Imaan Khan.
• Manish Choudhary as Major Vikram Singh.
• Rasika Dugal as Shobha Thakur.
• Anurag Sinha as Lt. Siddhant Thakur/Sadiq.
• Sujata Kumar as Squadron Leader Iman Khan’s Mother ( Mrs khan ).
• Arun Bali as Harpal Singh.
• Parul Gulati as Afreen.
• Suhaas Ahuja as Salim Khan.
• Ghazal Thakur as Shaira Khan.
• Krishh Pathak as Ayaan Khan.
• Shivani Singh as Naina.
• Ravinder Bakshi as Satpal Singh.
• Ragini Sharma as Veera.
• Anindita Nayar as Dr. Nandini Kapoor.
• Vrushabh Naik as Arjan.
• Denzil Smith as Lala / Rashid Jamal.
• Sahil Salathia as Yusuf.
• Sameksha as Indira Jaisingh.
• Pramod Pathak.
• Abhishek Gupta.
• Kanisha Malhotra as Ananya.

Trivia

• Star Plus approached Nikkhil Advani after watching his latest film D-Day (2013), to direct a show based on the similar plotline on their channel.
• Star Plus had him watch both Hatufim and its American counterpart Homeland.
• Advani sought to make a show like Hatufim since he thought a show like Homeland would not suite Indian’s sensibilities.
• The budget of the series was ₹35 crores, and was shot in 90 locations along with about 150 crew members and with a budget of ₹27 Lakh per episode.
• The series was planned as a finite one for 126 episodes.
• However, due to very less viewership, it ended with 110 episodes.

P.O.W. – Bandi Yuddh Ke Series

You can find a full index of P.O.W. – Bandi Yuddh Ke episodes here.

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s): Nikkhil Advani, Gauravv K. Chawla, Kaashvi Nair, and Nikhil Gonsalves.
• Producer(s): Monisha Advani and Madhu G. Bhojwani.
• Writer(s): Aseem Arora, Aniruddha Guha, and Nikkhil Advani.
• Music: Arjunna Harjaie.
• Production: Emmay Entertainment.
• Distributor(s): Turner Broadcasting System.
• Original Network: Star Plus.
• Release Date: 07 November 2016 to 15 March 2017.
• Running Time: 20-24 minutes.
• Country: India.
• Language: Hindi.