Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...

I recently saw the film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. If you've read my last few posts, you will know that I have learnt to do a little background research on the film that I choose, especially since this is a Bollywood film; thus notorious for being extremely long, so I am not forced to spend a grueling 4 hours on an awful film. This film had a very good response so I decided to give it a shot.'

This film gets points for:

• The film stars numerous star actors including: Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan and Rani Mukerji.

• It was no. 2 in the Box office hits in 2001 (Boxofficeindia).

• 15 Filmfare Awards, out of which they won 5 (Best Actress - Kajol, Best supporting Actress - Jaya Bachchcan, Best Dialogue, Best Art Direction and Best Scene of the Year - I will insert a video of the scene below).

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham is a film about Yash (Amitabh Bachchan) and his wife Nandini (Jaya Bachchan) and their two sons; Rahul, adopted, (Shahrukh Khan) and Rohan, biological, (Hrithik Roshan). Yash is living the perfect life, in his palatial estate with his beautiful wife, his first son recently finishing his MBA and ready to take over the family business. Yash's hopes for Rahul will culminate in his marriage to Naina (Rani Mukerji), however, Rahul falls in love with and marries Anjali (Kajol).

Due to Anjali's status and birth, Yash is completely devastated and banishes Rahul, disowning him. 10 years later, Rohan learns the truth of what happened to his brother, and goes on a crusade to reunite his family all with the help of Anjali's younger sister, Pooja (Kareena Kapoor).

This was a very good film. However, I find it difficult to say it was anything more than good. This film is not one of my favourites, and although I did enjoy it very much, I don't think it's one of the greatest films ever made. It lacked a certain quality which the films that I consider my favourites often have. 

Being as it is a Bollywood film, dance sequences often take up about a third of the film. However, I wouldn't say that this film had the best. So far, my favourites dance sequences came from Om Shanti Om. I will not completely disregard this films choreography though, as there was one particular song/dance which I did like very much. The song was "Bole Chudiyan". It's a very catchy song and Kajol will make you laugh. Here's the video:

I think I liked this song given that it was at a large party and is extremely festive and happy. Furthermore, the dancing is excellent. In particular, I love Hrinthik throughout, I had no idea he was so good at dancing!

This film does contain a lot of comedy, that playful humor between brothers, the clumsy yet lovable girl etc. One of the most hilarious things in the movie is the transformation Rohan goes through. If you've seen the movie, you know what I mean.

This is the first movie I've seen with Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. I can definitely understand why they were Bollywood's power couple. 

Overall, this is a good, fun-loving family movie. If you want to watch this on a Saturday night, I highly recommend it. It portrays all the elements of a good family movie, comedy, love, and family spirit. As the title translates, the theme that echoes throughout this film is 'sometimes happiness, sometimes sorrow'. 

However, I don't think that this movie was the best Shahrukh Khan/Kajol film. So far, that title remains with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. There just wasn't enough of them as a couple throughout this film. What's your favourite SRK/Kajol film? Was it Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham?

Love

C

Om Shanti Om

So the movie I'm reviewing today is Om Shanti Om. This is definitely my favourite movie so far and may very well become one of my favourite movies ever. Just to a give a little background info on the movie, it stars Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone.

When I was first selecting Bollywood films to watch, I'll admit that I was a little clueless. I knew very little about the actors and actresses, directors etc. It's only been a few weeks since I started learning these things, so I in no way claim to be proficient in my knowledge of Bollywood. That said, I certainly believe I have improved from my naive idea that if someone was talking about a good Bollywood actor it must be Shahrukh Khan since I didn't really know anyone else. For this reason, I particularly selected this movie because it starred Shahrukh Khan, but if you saw my last blog post, I have become aware that there are other factors that I need to check for when selecting a film.

This film was voted the no.1 Bollywood Box office hit in 2007 (Boxofficeindia). It has been nominated for and won so many awards that it would be impossible for me to list them all. If you would like to see a full list click here.

Om Shanti Om is a story about struggling actor Om (Shahrukh Khan) who is besotted by the world famous actress Shanti Priya (Deepika Padukone). Set in the backdrop of the 70s Bollywood it depicts the story of how Om tries to win his love Shanti only to find out that she is already secretly married to the successful producer Mukesh (Arjun Rampal). Devastated, Om tries to move on, but one night, as he is passing by the local film set he sees Mukesh lock Shanti in the film set and set fire to it. Om attempts to save his love, but is unsuccessful as he himself loses his life. The film then shows as Om, is reborn as Om Kapoor, the son of a successful Bollywood actor. As Om remembers the events of his past life, he vows to avenge himself and his love.

This may sound like a horror movie, but I can assure you it is not. The film is the perfect combination of comedy, romance and suspense in the right quantities. Upon further research I found that this film was also meant to parody Bollywood cinema.

The acting was fantastic. The actors in particular; SRK was the perfect actor for Om, the lovely Deepika and Arjun fit the character of the evil yet drop dead gorgeous villain perfectly. Apart from the acting, I thought that the clothes were amazing. I have never really been much of a fan of sarees, but Deepika was always wearing so many beautiful sarees that I believe my opinion of them has changed. In particular, I loved the black saree she wore in one particular scene. Here's a picture of it:

However, I can tell you for certain that my favourite part of this film was the dancing. This is perhaps the best musical sequences I've seen in any Bollywood film. There were two in particular. The first is an all star cast with nearly all the Bollywood stars. If you don't know all the Bollywood star's very well, this youtube video annotates each star as they come on screen. When I was trying to find this clip on YouTube I saw a comment which made me laugh that said that watching this video made them want to throw a huge Indian party and I couldn't agree more.This song will literally make you want to get up and start dancing too!

Also, if you watch closely, you may be able to spot a few references to other films. I only found 2, Urmila Matondkar's Rangeela dance moves and SRK's and Kajol's handshake and nose poke from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Let me know if you find any others!

The second dance sequence was from the final scene. Don't watch this if you haven't seen the film because it is a spoiler. This is perhaps one of my favourite dance sequences ever. There are English subs for both videos if you, like me, are unable to understand Hindi.

Overall, I think this is perhaps one of my favourite films ever and if I could only recommend one film to you, this would be it. It is the ideal Friday night movie.

Love
C

Dil Se

So I recently saw the film Dil Se. I thought this film would be good for the following reasons:

1. It starred Shahrukh Khan, one of Bollywood's greatest actors.
2. Preity Zinta was a supporting actress.
3. It won the following awards: 1999 Berlin International Film Festival, 1999 National Film Awards (India), 1999 Filmfare Awards in the following areas; Best Female Debut, Best Music Director, Best Lyricist, Best Male Playback, Best Cinematographer and Best Choreography.
4. It was the first Indian film to enter the UK top 10 box office hits.

What I found out after watching the film and completely agree with:

1. The film was a box office flop in India. (from boxofficeindia)

This was probably one of the greatest disappointments for me to watch considering I had assumed I was on a good movie choice streak. For me, this film was extremely boring. It is not something that you would want to watch on a Friday night. 

Although this film is about love the main plot throughout focuses on the political aspect of diplomatic relations between India and Nepal. This is furthered by the fact that the main actress Manisha Koirala is from a political family in Nepal where her grandfather was former Prime Minister. 

This film isn't your typical happy-go-lucky movie where the biggest problem for the leading lady is whether she should match red nail polish or pink nail polish with her saree. The film hosts violent themes such as terrorism, rape, murder, poverty, child soldiers, war and suicide.

However, it would be unfair to completely dismiss this story based on the fact that it isn't a happy movie, since let's face it, life isn't always happy and we can't simply turn a blind eye to the bad in this world, can we? The film does a very good job at highlighting the struggle faced by victims during war, in this case, that of a young girl. It allows us to see, and perhaps even empathize, with terrorists. The film shows the true meaning of how everything in this world is not black and white, how the decisions of politicians in one country can lead to the destruction of innocent civilians in another. Of how these brutal attacks can create child soldiers who in turn will commit horrendous crimes such as bombing schools of the enemy country.

Entwined in these dilemmas is of course a love story. The title Dil Se translates in English as From the Heart. I found an interesting fact of this film upon research of it

"Dil Se  is said to be a journey through the 7 shades of love that are defined in ancient Arabic literature. Those shades are defined as attraction, infatuation, love, reverence, worship, obsession and death." (from Bollymusings)

Upon looking back on the film, I can certainly see some these stages, but not all. I think that in order to do so I would need to watch the movie again looking for these aspects of them. If you see this film let me know your thoughts of it and whether you found all the stages of love throughout.

Just as a little note, I am now going through the website Boxofficeindia to find future movies to watch as I feel that this is the only way I can make sure that I don't waste 3 hours on a movie I probably won't like. In all fairness however, this movie was not bad, it just wasn't what I was looking forward to watching, but in retrospect, I do think that this was a good film.

Love
C

Dil

I just watched the film Dil starring Aamir Khan and Madhuri Dixit. Madhuri is perhaps one of my favourite Bollywood actresses. Her acting is so good and she looks so beautiful (not that, that is a fact that I will discriminate on for any actress). Madhuri won a Filmfare award for this film and after watching it, I think it was a well deserved award.

Dil is a film about a boy Raja, whose father wants to have him married off to a millionaire's daughter with a handsome dowry. The millionaire's daughter in question is Madhu who is a beautiful yet feisty and spoilt girl. Upon her initial meeting with Raja, the two completely hate each other. Yet, as is common for all Bollywood tales, this passionate hatred soon turns into a passionate love. However, this is not the end of the film as the couple face several other hardships.

This film was rated the no.1 Box Office Hit in Bollywood in 1990. As is typical with box office hits is the same values that resonate throughout. One qualm that I had about this film however, was the number of climaxes that occurred as problem after problem was found. I found it a little too much and it started to bore me a little. The overall film however, was a great film. Not my favourite, but certainly a great blockbuster hit.

One thing that I noticed throughout the dancing was how much it reminded me of the 70s Hollywood hit Grease starring Olivia Newton John and John Travolta. This was just for one song where they are inside when Madhu is practicing what appears to be Jazz Ballet and Raja makes her slip on a banana peel. Let me know what you think.

Love

C

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

As by the title, I'm sure you can tell that the first Bollywood film I watched was Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. This was an amazing movie to choose to kick off my Bollywood film reviews. The film stars Kajol and Shahrukh Khan (one of Bollywood's favorite movie couple) and Rani Mukerji (Kajol's real life cousin).

The film is extremely cliche yet the perfect happy family movie composed of a love triangle, death and laughter all round in this comedy filled movie. I absolutely loved it. Every minute. The story line is a little plain and there are many plotholes, for example, the expectation by a mother that an extremely beautiful woman will still be single after 8 years and willing to take her widower-ed husband who broke said woman's heart. Nonetheless, it maintains a perfect balance of themes prevalent in almost every Bollywood film with the motif of 'love conquers all' echoing throughout it.

I am no absolutely in love with the name Anjali, the name of both Kajol's character and Shahrukh Khan's daughter's character. I only wish it was a little less popular and would seriously consider naming any future daughter's of mine Anjali.

My recommendation? If you're in the mood for a fun filled evening with a happy movie and a few laughs, watch it.

Love

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Introduction

So I've decided that amongst studying, eating and being a regular adolescent, I'm going to add something to my otherwise mundane life, and start watching Bollywood movies! The aim is to watch one every Saturday night and I can assure you that this is something that I will definitely stick to, if not slightly surpass. After watching each of these movies, I will then write a little review of what I thought of the movie.

Something that I should let you know of, is that I am not Indian, and therefore do not understand, nor can I read, any Hindi or any other Indian language. This means that I need to find Bollywood films with English subtitles, and I'm sure that there are plenty of times that the meaning of the words will be lost in translation, but let's face it, at least two thirds or a Bollywood movie is made up of singing and dancing. I look forward to writing blogs and watching the movies.

Love
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