Forget about Moulin Rouge — the future of the musical lies in films like this Bollywood blockbuster from Ashutosh Gowariker. The most expensive film in Indian history, Lagaan looks it, with sweeping, burnished locations and epic production numbers shot with the grandeur and intimacy of a David Lean epic.

It’s 1893 in a remote province, and Captain Andrew Russell (Paul Blackthorne), the British army overseer, has capriciously imposed a double land tax, or lagaan, on a village already devastated by a long drought. But he offers an out: if the locals can defeat his team at cricket, the tax will be revoked. Bhuvan (Bollywood heartthrob Aamir Khan) impulsively accepts. His neighbors are incensed — no one knows this silly English game. Fortunately, the Captain’s sister Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley, usually backlit, her parasol glowing like a nimbus), moved by the villagers’ plight and perhaps by Bhuvan’s bare and brawny pecs, surreptitiously teaches them the rules, much to the dismay of Gauri (Gracy Singh), Bhuvan’s village love. The game and the songs and dances draw everyone together: feuding neighbors, Hindu and Muslim — even the crippled Untouchable is embraced (his infirmity enables him to bowl a wicked knuckleball). Non-cricket fans might find the four-day match at the end of this 225-minute extravaganza a bit of a sticky wicket, but the outcome is worth waiting for.