Begum Jaan first look: Vidya Balan looks fierce, intriguing as a brothel madam

After stunning the audience with her spellbinding portrayal of a child abuse victim in Sujoy Ghosh's suspense thriller Kahaani 2 that released last month, Vidya Balan is all set to take her fans by surprise in yet another de-glam avatar in her next, National Award-winning filmmaker Srijit Mukherji's period drama Begum Jaan.[caption id="attachment_3189464" align="alignleft" width="380"] Vidya Balan and Gauhar Khan in the first look of Begum Jaan. Twitter[/caption]Balan plays the titular character, who is the madam of a brothel during the troubled times of Partition. Going by the first look of the film, she looks completely absorbed in her character as she sips on a hookah while being massaged, by one of the women in the brothel, on a charpoy.In an interview to Deccan Chronicle, Balan had shared her excitement on playing Begum Jaan, "My onscreen character raises a very important question — why are a woman’s actions controlled by her father, brother, husband or son? So she decides not to allow anyone to take away her space, be it in terms of property or her physical self."To see her play a 'shero' yet again is immensely gratifying. While Kahaani 2 may not have been as commercially and critically successful as its prequel, it did reestablish Balan as a formidable actor who can give all her contemporaries a run for their money.Prior to the release of the film, she had touched upon her low phase after Kahaani, when three of her films - Raj Kumar Gupta's comedy Ghanchakkar, Saket Chaudhary's romantic comedy Shaadi Ke Side Effects and Mohit Suri's Humari Adhuri Kahani - had bombed at the box-office. She took a sabbatical to introspect as well as to deal with long-neglected health issues and was subsequently written off.However, she seems as confident of Begum Jaan as she was of Kahaani 2 which is a reason enough for us to look forward to the film.Begum Jaan also stars Ila Arun, Gauhar Khan, Pallavi Sharda, Naseeruddin Shah and Chunky Pandey. It is produced by Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt's banner Vishesh Films and is slated to release on 17 March.