The tenacity of ‘Tibetan Tarantino’!

A still from ‘Four Rivers Six Ranges’

Shenpenn Khymsar, the multi-hyphenate Indian-born filmmaker of Tibetan origin, does not merely make movies.

He has something so existential to convey, as if his life depends on it, that the mission guiding him soars his art over plain-vanilla activism.

That's what denotes a calling, from a profession, I suppose. Take Four Rivers Six Ranges (2026), playing at a theatre near you.

It's a historical battle-field drama, set in the late 1950s, between the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the Tibetan guerilla force, Chushi Gangdruk, namely, Four Rivers Six Ranges (4R6R).

While watching certain wide, lingering shots, the rugged terrain, natural lights, and deep shadows - I felt it could've been quasi-directed by Akira Kurosawa!

Filmmaker Shenpenn Khymsar

The long, opening gun-fight sequence, seemingly over a single take, shot through the narrow alleys and huts within a mountain range is, equally, a cinematic delight.

It's been written, directed, produced, distributed, with music composed and action choreographed by Shenpenn alone, starring untrained/non-professional performers. Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, whom Shenpenn is set to work with next, has voiced the introductory narration in Hindi for 4R6R.

I would've preferred the film in its original language. Its final 30 minutes relate to how the said Tibetan guerilla army eventually executed the escape of the Dalai Lama into India, on March 31, 1959, once the Chinese were closing in on Lhasa, completely taking over Tibet for good.

It's the only portion of the true-life, low-budget war-film that Shenpenn has, thus, shown to the Dalai Lama, the Buddhist apostle of universal non-violence. There's a scene in it, where the Dalai Lama crosses a lake in a boat.

The drunk boatman hired for the sequence disappeared. It was already midnight. Shenpenn says he learnt to row, over a couple of hours, and did it himself. Likewise, Shenpenn reveals, he personally trained his actors to gallop on horsebacks.

He shot the movie in Mustang valley in Nepal, about 30 km from the Chinese border. The location's significant. Shenpenn tells me this is where the Americans/CIA used to drop weapons for 4R6R, until the "warrior brotherhood ended" in 1974.

The production itself wasn't different from the guerilla warfare it's inspired from. Shenpenn had permission to shoot in Mustang.

Except, he'd submitted a "fake script" to the Nepalese government, titled, Himalayan RobinHood! Couple of weeks down, Nepalese authorities, apparently, got wind of WTF was going on - they can hardly afford to piss off the Chinese.

Shenpenn says he could "feel the heat," and had to wrap the entire film's schedule in 19 days flat. He's still made Himalayan Robin Hood - which would be the documentary on the making of 4R6R!

Consider Michael Henry Wilson's In Search of Kundun (available on YouTube), on the making of Martin Scorsese's biopic of the Dalai Lama, Kundun (1997).

I've seen and loved the doc, even been to the sets of Kundun, still standing, in the Atlas Mountains, in Morocco. But Kundun has been virtually wiped off the legal Internet, because Disney willfully erased its own $28 million, multiple Oscar-nominated production to appease the Chinese.

It's when you watch Jean-Jacques Annaud's brilliant Brad Pitt starrer, Seven Years in Tibet (1997, Netflix), that you truly feel the disturbed Himalayan isolation of Tibet, the forbidden city of Lhasa, and the emotional force of the Dalai Lama for his people.

Given the sensitive nature of Sino-Indian relations - the censor board practically banned Salman Khan's Galwan - I was pleasantly surprised that 4R6R made it to local theatres. Shenpenn tells me that while the appointed jurors had approved, he never heard from the censor board for months, until he had to make a "few calls."

4R6R was to play at IFFI, in Goa. He recalls the screening got withdrawn a week before, because the Indian ministry of external affairs had flagged it. It finally premiered at the prestigious Rotterdam film festival.

Actor Richard Gere watched it in Dharamshala, during the Dalai Lama's birthday, and called Shenpenn, the "Tibetan Tarantino".

Shenpenn suggests this western appropriation hardly impresses him much. He'd rather be Shenpenn, from India, telling his people's untold stories to the world, and inspiring the young within.
Growing up in Darjeeling, his friends nicknamed him ‘Mungeri Lal' for the ‘haseen sapne' he harboured of being in the movies.

Shenpenn is the first in his bloodline to be born outside Tibet. For his ethnicity, it's when he watched Scorsese's Kundun that he first felt seen on the big screen.

He spent time in Bombay, applying for acting jobs. None existed. The scene's considerably changed since: "There weren't the casting offices of Aaram Nagar Part II back then."

Over a Zoom call from Amsterdam, talking to Shenpenn feels, for me, a personal exploration of sorts, into Tibetan history, culture, from Nalanda University, down to Nehru-Eisenhower. As it is, the subject fascinates me. I've offered to buy him a drink in Mumbai. If you've seen his film, you're welcome to join in.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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