Patthar Ke Phool (1991)
By Ashish On July 04, 2008 in Mafia, Song, Video, Police, Crime, Bollywood, Romance, Action, Movie
Patthar Ke Phool was a movie released in 1991. It was the debut movie of Raveena Tandon and one of the earlier movies of Salman Khan; and unlike some of Salman’s earlier movies, this was not exactly a hit. Some of the other characters in the movie were Vinod Mehra, Kiran Kumar, Reema Lagoo and Manohar Singh. Vinod Mehra passed away before the movie could be released, and the movie was dedicated to his memory. The movie was directed by Anant Balani and produced by GP Sippy. Music for the movie was by Ramlaxman, and the movie was written by Salim Khan.
The movie was about this young police officer fighting an underworld gang. He is also in love with Kiran (Raveena Tandon) who is actually the daughter of the leader of the gang, and about whose real activities she is unaware.
Raveena won the Filmfare Lux New Face Award for this movie.
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So what happens when the duty of Suraj (Salman Khan) leads him to fight against the activities of his beloved’s father ? Her father is also against this relationship, and the movie is about this conflict.
Kasturi - the amnesia plot
By Ashish On June 30, 2008 in Drama, Star Plus, Revenge, Video, Values, Character, TV, Romance, Family, Hindi Serial
When a serial lands in problems or the story needs to be elongated, there are some traditional measures that can be adopted such as amnesia, plastic surgery, etc. All of them are great for changing not only the person playing the character, but also help in adding a few weeks to the serial. And so it proved in Kasturi; just when the confrontation between Kasturi and Raunaq seemed to reaching a peak and Robbie would become totally aware of the truth of Raunaq, things changed. So what did happen ?
Well, Kasturi decided that she needed to strike back, so she pretended to behave madly. In the midst of this, Raunaq and Anita decided that they really do need to end the life of Kasturi, and they can drop her off a cliff after drugging her; she however is prepared and tries to turn the tables on them. However, in the end, she is the one who gets shot and falls off the cliff, and her mother blames Robbie for this happening.
Update in Kumkum - Sumit and Kumkum do a pretend marriage
By Ashish On June 29, 2008 in Values, Drama, Star Plus, Character, Family, TV, Romance, Hindi Serial
In the rebirth of the serial, Kumkum and Sumit land up in families far away from each other. Their life moves through at fast speed, and soon they reach their adulthood (after all, if they are shown as children for a long time, what happens to Hussain and Juhi Parmar - they would tend to get mighty impatient!). So, soon they reach at a point where the come into contact with each other; but totally opposite; their fathers are in conflict with each other.
And then suddenly you are witness to an extraordinary sight - Kumkum gets stuck in a spot while helping Mini, and had to cook up a story such that she is actually married and was with her husband (and this was asked by neighbors apparently, and then imagine that she could cool up a story that she was married without telling her strict father); you can imagine the rest - in a mistake, Sumit is acknowledged to be her husband, and she is not able to deny this. Her father is horrified at her selection of a husband, but is slowly coming around to accept this. Sumit is away from home after a misunderstanding with his father. He accepts this arrangement of being a false husband since Kumkum convinces him that she has the information that he is looking for.
Bhootnath - a mis-mash of different emotions
By Ashish On June 21, 2008 in Culture, Video, Child, Drama, Song, Movie, Values, Society
I watched Bhootnath just the day after having watched Jannat just the previous day, and given that my impression of Jannat was not good, any movie would have been good. But Bhootnath was a movie that impressed in parts. The Director, Vivek Sharma, tried to take many human emotions into the movie; thus taking the movie into 3 separate parts - the first part where the ghost appears to be evil and a danger to whoever tries to enter the property; the second part where the child makes friend with the ghost and turns him into a proper civilized person-like character with human emotions; and the third part where there is an attempt to throw in a lot of tear-jerkering emotional scene so that the ghost can disappear and everything can turn out normal. In the end, these attempts to make the movie cater to many interests put a lot of strain on the overall movie, and my feeling is that it did not turn out as well as could be. The movie takes on a heavy social issue of how children go abroad, and become of that land.
The movie is geared towards kids, and that was clear when I saw the songs. They were all songs designed to appeal to children, and it did seem a bit different to see songs that had a lot of kids in them; but most of the audience was adults, so was wondering whether there was a mismatch in terms of the advertising of the movie versus the intended effect of the advertising. The movie has a cast that is capable of some great things - Amitabh Bachchan, Aman Siddiqui, Juhi Chawla, Rajpal Yadav, Satish Shah, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Shahrukh Khan. Amitabh Bachchan gives a good role, but one feels that in the middle of the movie, he gets overshadowed by the kid, and then in the latter half of the movie, Shahrukh Khan seems to get most of the attention (Shahrukh Khan had a role that was more than a guest appearance, but less than a full role). Rajpal Yadav was very thoroughly under-used in the movie, getting 2 very brief scenes (almost like a cameo).
Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat on Star Plus
By Ashish On June 21, 2008 in Drama, Star Plus, Video, Values, Character, TV, Family, Hindi Serial
Raja Ki Baarat is a serial that appears on Star Plus at 8 PM weekdays (Mon to Thur). It is a show about a girl called Rani, only 17 years old. She is the support of her family after the passing away of her father, and works in the big mansion (who lives in this kind of lifestyle anymore). She is very good at what she does (and she essentially works as a servant in the house), in addition she is very dedicated and honest (although the senior Bhanumathi can’t stand her). The other main character of the serial is the prince, Yudhistir, who is very aware of his status. He is not arrogant, but very much aware of his tradition and duties, and will act in the manner prescribed by tradition.
In this family, the Raja Surya Singh Rathore is the strongman of the family, the absolute patriarch; his word is law in the family and he believes in his elder son. In addition, there are the 2 sisters to whom he is married - the Badi Rani and the Choti Rani. The Badi Rani is bed ridden, and does not speak. The entire family cares for her; however, it turns out that the Choti Rani (her younger sister) wants to get rid of the Badi Rani and get the focus onto her son Ranbir rather than the elder son (Yudhistir), who is after all the son of the elder Rani.
Towards this end, she is trying to poison the Badi Rani (her own sister) and Rani is getting caught up in this game, since part of her duties is to attend to the Badi Rani and give her the medicine. Now the Badi Rani is poisoned, her life is saved but she is in a coma, and the blame starts getting put on Rani. How does she get out of this and prove her innocence ?
Kayamath - Prachi is finally happy
By Ashish On June 17, 2008 in Drama, Star Plus, Video, Character, Family, TV, Despair, Romance, Hindi Serial
It seemed like in every episode of Kayamath, Prachi does nothing but cry. So it was somewhat relieving to see that there was finally an episode in which she is happy. And why is she happy ? Because the inevitable finally happened. The long long (too long in my opinion) scene of Milind having lost his memory, and then ditching Prachi for Ayesha (with Ayesha doing a lot of manipulation, portraying herself as the perfect manipulative and ruthless person, and combined with getting half of the dialogues where she only speaks to herself) finally turns around.
Milind, even though he seems to have not regained his memory, cannot stay away from Prachi to the utter disgust of Ayesha who tries everything possible to threaten Prachi, and to plot against her (including manipulating a relationship between Sukriti and Alaap, only thwarted when Milind sees Prachi telling Alaap to stay away from Sukriti). In all this, nobody ever suspects that Ayesha is the one behind all this.
In the end, Milind refuses to marry Ayesha, getting up from the actual marriage place (just the night before, he had told Prachi that he loved her, but he was duty bound to marry Ayesha). Ayesha is devastated by this and cannot believe that Milind is rejecting her for Prachi. Further, right then a fire happens, and in the midst of this fire, Milind miraculously regains his memory (you just need to tap them on the head and they either lose their memory or regain it). And then of course, he recognizes that Prachi is the one that was with him, and they get ready to marry. And in the midst of all, they want Ayesha to attend (after rejecting her and humiliating her, they want her to attend !).
Ghar Ki Laxmi Betiyaan - The end of Bhavishya ?
By Ashish On June 10, 2008 in Star Plus, Revenge, Video, Drama, Character, TV, Crime, Family, Hindi Serial
Many months ago, Saraswati was shown as having got married to Bhavishya, the worst time of her life. He caused immense torture to her, and then tried to burn her. She finally got out this problem, and Bhavishya was diagnosed as being mentally ill and sent to a mental hospital.
And then the rule of the doubles came in; Durga met a young man who looked exactly like Bhavishya. The family was very suspicious of this new person, but slowly everybody (and hesitantly Sawaswati) got over the whole worry and accepted him. He married Durga, and things seemed to be fine. He was actually genuine, and then Bhavishya, having got out of the hospital in some way, kidnapped this guy and took his place. And then he started plotting again.
He started drugging Durga, and had more plans to cause problems to the rest of the family. He also caused immense tensions between Durga and Saraswati, and eventually for Saraswati to be declared as mad and sent off to a hospital. But now his game seemed to be up; both Karan and Lakshmi realized his truth and plotted as to how to expose him. And eventually, the sisters and Savitri cornered him, and burned him to death (not good, you should never show using murder for any kind of revenge; it is illegal and gives essentially wrong advice to people).
Jannat (2008) - Disappointing story of a match fixer
By Ashish On June 08, 2008 in Drama, Video, Cricket, Values, Police, Bollywood, Despair, Crime, Movie
Mahesh Bhatt has been making movies for a long time, and they have been very good movies. So, for example, I really liked some of his older movies such as Arth, Saransh, Janam, Naam, Murder, Woh Lamhe, Daddy, Ashiqui, Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, Dil Hain Ke Manta Nahin, Sadak, Sir, Tamana, etc. He has also turned out turkeys such as Duplicate. In recent time, Bhatt has moved out of the director post and is partner in the banner Vishesh films (along with his brother) that produces movies. It is expected that movies made in the banner retain the touch of Mahesh Bhatt to some degree, with a strong focus on human relations, relationships whether they be a marriage, or outside marriage. However, Jannat disappointed. The story of a person who wants to attain success, and a great deal of it (portrayed by Emran Hashemi); he does not seem to know the difference between right and wrong.
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Tum Bin (2001)
By Ashish On June 08, 2008 in Song, Melody, Drama, Video, Values, Character, Bollywood, Classic, Romance, Crime, Movie
Tum Bin was a movie that was released in 2001, and was a pretty low budget and low profile movie. It turned out to be the sleeper movie, becoming a much loved movie by the audience and a big hit. The songs, as well as the storyline caught a lot of attention (this was after not a classical tale of romance against the odds or a similar such formula), instead a story of an anguished semi-guilty man trying to make amends for what he has done to another family by killing their chief hope; and then the guilt of what he has done preventing him from trying to fulfill his hopes and ambitions, and his love. In addition, the same sense of shock and distraught feeling causes the heroine to back away from love and more towards responsibility. This was a story of emotions, and truly a good story (even though there were some deficiencies in the story).
The movie was produced by Super Cassettes industries (Bhushan Kumar & Krishan Kumar), and directed by newbie director Anubhav Sinha, who also wrote the script and the dialogues. The movie also stars newcomers Sandali Sinha (Piya) and Priyanshu Chatterjee (Shekhar Malhotra), and these 2 gave a good portrayal in their roles that demanded a fair amount of emotion (they have not managed to do too well after this initial good start). They are supported ably by some good casting comprising of Rakesh Bapat, Himanshu Malik, Navneet Nishan, Rajendra Gupta, Dina Pathak and Vrijesh Hirjee.
Latest update on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi
By Ashish On June 06, 2008 in Drama, Star Plus, Values, Family, TV, Hindi Serial
Seems like the saga of the Smriti Irani based character, Tulsi is now in full flow. At some point in the past, there was a fall-out between Ekta Kapoor and Smriti (primarily based on the fact that Smriti started her own production house and was spending a lot of time on this effort). So, in an accident, Smriti got removed from the serial and in her place, Gautami was brought in (with plastic surgery to explain the face change from Smriti to Gautami). Gautami soon managed to get enough proof to convince everyone that she was the real Smriti, and also acted in ways that resembled the old Tulsi (I always get confused about this, given that she is going to be stepping into a marriage with a live husband - what happens when there is the expectation of intimacy between the 2?).
So anyhow, soon Smriti came back into the serial (with a lot of fanfare), and poor Gautami was suddenly shown as a conspiring fake person, in cahoots with Mandira in order to defraud the family of the entire property and then run away with all the money. And Mihit became the good person again, having gone to Mandira’s side only for the purpose of trying to find the reality of Tulsi’s reality; he soon discovers that his suspicions are correct, that she is indeed fake, being in reality Juhi Thakral.
