It is often seen that when a film fails to make it big on box office, actors and makers also try to distance themselves from it and start slamming it. However, actor Manoj Bajpayee certainly doesn't belong to that category. Back in the 2007, he had starred in a military themed movie titled '1971' which failed on box office because of lack of marketing. The actor once recalled that makers didn't even had enough budget to hang posters of the film outside cinema halls.

However, despite all that, Manoj considers '1971' as one of the best works of his career. Even though the film was a commercial failure, it managed to win two National Awards and when it was released on YouTube during lockdown, it managed to get 50 million views. Talking about the same, Manoj recently told ETimes, "Within three months, twenty million people had watched it. And then people began talking about it. And now it is fifty million! I am only talking about the numbers for the sake of the industry, which is so box office-oriented. I am just happy that X number of people have seen and are talking about it. Finally, that is the goal of any creative work, right?”

Talking further about how proud he is of this film, Manoj added, "When I talk about 1971, I would like to repeat what Anurag said when he saw it. He said it was the best Army film he had seen – not war film, mind you, Army film. A film that tells you what an Army man in that situation goes through. What does being a prisoner of war mean? When we read that a soldier is captured, what does it mean for him, physically and mentally? This is a film I am very, very proud of. In the end, the director and me and the team feel that finally poetic justice has been done, not by anyone else but by technology.”