The Warrior (2001 British film)
The Warrior is a 2001 film directed by Asif Kapadia. It is a British-led, multi-country production filmed in Rajasthan, India, and spoken in Hindi. Irrfan Khan stars as Lafcadia, a fierce warrior in feudal Rajasthan who decides he wants to lay down his sword.
The story follows Lafcadia and his loyal band who serve a cruel tyrant. After a brutal village raid, Lafcadia is reminded of his humanity when he sees a girl who reminds him of his own child. He spares the girl and her mother and begins to doubt his life as a killer. Guilt drives him to renounce combat and travel toward the Himalayas with his son.
The tyrant orders Lafcadia’s rival to kill him and bring back his head. Lafcadia’s son is captured, and the rival uses a ruse to fool the boy into identifying a different man as Lafcadia’s corpse. Lafcadia saves his son but the boy is killed in the palace. He escapes with help from a kind palace blacksmith and continues his journey toward home, now hunted by the commander.
Along the way, Lafcadia befriends an orphaned thief, travels with a blind woman who has psychic abilities, and is joined by a traveling cart driver. They reach the mountains and confront a village occupied by rival warriors. The young thief learns Lafcadia’s true past, and although hurt, he stays with him. Lafcadia finally confronts the commander and kills him, but the journey ends in a somber, contemplative moment as Lafcadia confronts the meaning of his life and his visions of his homeland.
The Warrior won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the BAFTAs. It was Britain’s official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film but was disqualified because it was not made in, or in a language indigenous to, the United Kingdom. The Welsh-language film Eldra was Britain's official submission instead. The movie also screened at festivals in London, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Pusan, Gothenburg, and Boston.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:58 (CET).