Writer-director Vishal Bhardaj is best known for his trilogy of Shakespearean tragedies: Maqbool (based on Macbeth), Omkara (based on Othello), and Haider (you guessed it - Hamlet.) However, while Maqbool was an early success, Bhardaj's directorial debut was the children's fantasy film Makdee (2002). And while Makdee is a story about a village haunted by a witch, alternately light-hearted and spooky, you can totally tell it's the same guy.
The ghost is established early, as a group of angry villagers led by the boisterous butcher Kallu (Makarand Deshpande) chase a young thief (Pappu) into the witch's house. Nobody wants to follow, especially not village policemen Banta and Ghanta (not credited on the IMDB), until eleven year old troublemaker Chunni (Shweta Basu Prasad) appears and shames them into following her. They're already too late, though, and everyone flees when they discover that the witch has transformed the thief into a goat.
Despite being an eleven year old girl, Chunni is very much a stereotypical Nineties Bollywood hero, complete with the confident swagger and love of pranks. In other words, she's kind of a jerk and not quite as charming as she thinks she is. Her twin sister Munni (also Shweta Basu Prasad) is demure and studious and kind. And sidekick Mughal-e-Azam (Aalap Mazgaonkar) is loyal, not especially smart, and consistently hungry, since Kallu doesn't feed him if the chores aren't done properly. Chunni can't stand Kallu, and he's a frequent target of her pranks, while he tends to chase her with a butcher knife whenever he catches her.
Things escalate when Chunni releases all of Kallu's chickens into the village. He's furious, and chases the girl he thinks is Chunni into the witch's house. It's not Chunni, though, it's Munni, and when Chunni realizes that her sister is in danger because of her she loses her swagger and breaks down, begging the responsible adults in the village for help. They all assume it's another prank, though, and finally she has to enter the house herself. And that's when she meets the Witch (Shabana Azmi).
The Witch knows who Chunni is, and reveals that she's transformed Munni into a chicken. She promises to turn Munni back into a human, but only after Chunni brings her one hundred hens to sate her hunger. Not all at once, though - she's not a monster! (Actually she is a monster.) She demands one hen a night, and if Chunni tells anyone the consequences will be dire. So Chunni has to collect the hens, impersonate her own sister well enough that nobody notices, and do her own homework!
Makdee goes surprisingly hard for a children's film. As a horror movie it relies on dread rather than gore, but there is plenty of dread to spare, and the scenes in the house are wonderfully Gothic. The Witch is cruel, taunting Chunni at every opportunity and even swinging outside her classroom at school just to keep the poor girl on edge, and it's soon clear that she can, will, and indeed has hurt a child.
And that brings me to the acting. Shabana Azmi is an art film legend, so it's no surprise that she brings the Witch to sadistic life. Makarand Deshpande is another art film stalwart, and he's great whether he's singing a duet with a chicken, chasing children with a knife, or coming to the rescue when nobody else will. But Shweta Basu Prasad was eleven years old when this movie came out, and she is amazing here. She's not just great for a child actor, she's great for an actor of any age, balancing two distinct characters (one of whom impersonates the other) and portraying a genuinely harrowing emotional arc. Bhardwaj's direction is confident and skillful, but Shweta makes the movie.
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