As conservative as I can be, there were many things about the movie "300" that seems quite out of context for me. Ok, it was based on a comic but the portrayal of original persians (who fled islamic rule and moved to india) was abysmal. The part of the movie I really enjoyed was the special effects and the background track and cinematography...Anyways, I did some research and here is what i found:

qs: a) Is home to the "Last of the Persians" (the Parsees of Mumbai, the last people to have preserved intact the culture of Achaemenid Persia (they still give themselves names like Xerxes and Cyrus))
b) Is a sister culture to the Persia depicted in the movie (both share a common cultural root, and are based on the concept of Aryan culture)

The symbolism and relation to Hinduism --- the Ramayana, the spy-messenger from the good side, sent into the territory of the bad side, is caught by the bad ones. He has caused quite a bit of damage to some state property. The villain of the piece, Ravana, wants to kill him for his insolence.

But his ministers and his own brother are shocked at the suggestion, and tell him that such a thing would be an abomination, unthinkable, and that he should not entertain such a thought. Finally, Ravana relents, and instead chooses to punish the messenger for the damage he has caused (the messenger being a half-human, half-monkey, the punishment is that his tail hair will be set on fire), but that he will be allowed to go back.

Even the greatest villain of our epics, written long before this Sparta thing happened, did not kill a messenger. And we have the Spartans, supposedly from the "Good Side", arrogantly killing the messengers the Persians sent them. And that is then portrayed as good! Absolutely shocking, and totally immoral and adharmic behaviour is condoned here!

And the Spartans lecturing the Persians about freedom is like the British lecturing Mahatma Gandhi about non-violence. Sparta was a society which consisted of professional soldiers, who had to be professionals in order to keep under their control the helots and serfs. The so-called "free men" never did a day's worth of productive work in their lives. They were legally debarred from doing any trading or agriculture.The reason Sparta was so militaristic was because it was necessary to keep the serfs and helots in line, or they would revolt. And they did frequently revolt, and had to be put down repeatedly and mercilessly.

Xerxes and others of the Achaemenid line are the heroes of these people. These are the people who fled the Islamic invaders, and settled in India, bringing their ancient culture to her sister, their only protector left in the world. They even brought the ashes of their fire temples, to maintain ritual continuity with their old fire temples, in which a fire continuously burns to this day - a fire which has never gone out for over a thousand years. Just because a culture is dead or nearly dead does not mean that you go and do to it what has been done in the movie.

In India, with the passage of time, the villains of our epics were progressively demonised over time. But in spite of all that, we still had the decency to acknowledge their greatness. Ravana, though a bad person, is still praised for his piety, for his composition of the great prayer to Shiva, the Shiva Tandava Stotram, for his contributions to the science of medicine

And the denigration of their religion. Zoorastrianism is one of the noblest religions in the world. They are essentially fire-worshippers. They use fire as a representation of Ahura Mazda, the force for good. According to them, the world is a battle-ground, where Ahura Mazda constantly fights Ahriman, his eternal enemy, in the ever-continuing fight between good and evil, and that we are fighters, and have to decide on which side we fight. This mirrors very closely the Indian concept of Dharma, or "that which is right".

Note that this religion is still alive, it is still practiced! Now if you're a true parsi, I feel sorry for you, and If you are someone who took this movie's msg to heart, I feel sorry for you too, lets do proper research before making judgements....