Late review - CHANDI CHOWK TO CHINA

Nikhil Advani, director of Bollywood weepie KAL HO NAA HO, and love story, SALAAM-E-ISHQ, returned in early 2009 with a glossy, US-backed, Bollywood love-story-comedy-martial arts flick called CHANDI CHOWK TO CHINA. A vehicle for ageing comedy hero Akshay Kumar, and up-coming actress Deepika Padukone, the movie is there to show us that Bollywood can do wire-fu too.

The plot is simple - too simple for a 150 minute film. Kumar plays his standard rough and ready hero with a heart of gold. He's a poor cook with bad luck. But all that changes when some Chinese people believe him to be the reincarnation of an old Chinese hero, who should return to their village and defeat the gangster who is controlling their lives. On the way, Kumar's character meets an Indian model who is also on her way to China, where her twin sister is now working for the aforementioned gangster. Naturally (!) the hero learns that all those years dicing potatoes were, "wax on, wax off" styl-ee, the perfect training to be a martial arts legend.

The problem with this film - as in most modern Bollywood films - is that the concept, the songs, and the look - are more important to the film-makers than the actual story. Indeed, I am not surprised in the least to know that the film's teaser poster - Akshay Kumar in a Chinese outfit - was the inspiration for the storyline, rather than the other way around. The sets are glossy, the martial arts lean heavily on CGI and wire-fu, the songs (Shankar Mahadevan) are forgettable, and I'm starting to become really embarrassed for Hollywood stars who ape rappers and MTV videos.

Overall, in the whole 150 minutes the only real fun I had was in two scenes. In the first, the hero finds "the face of hanuman" in a potato and people start worshipping it - great satire. In the second, the heroine attaches a dance-gadget to the heroes legs, and Kumar does a little skit ape-ing Bollywood hits of the past. Kumar is good at physical comedy. He's less convincing as an action hero. He should leave the wire-fu to Hrithik Roshan. I am deeply unconvinced by Padukone's talent.

CHANDI CHOWK TO CHINA was released in January 2009 and is available on DVD.

Random DVD Round-Up 4 - TASHAN / STYLE

TASHAN means "style" in Hindi, and that's a perfect description of this slick, flashy, wannabe Tarantino movie from director Vijay Krishna Acharya - the guy who wrote the similarly slick but vacuous DHOOM flicks. As in the DHOOM movies, his prime concerns are hot chicks, cool criminals and convoluted heists. But where DHOOM had careful plotting and fitted firmly in the action genre, TASHAN is balls-out ridiculous. The lurid colours, absurd characters, anarchic and absurd plot all make for a movie that is more an experience than a convincing narrative. Acharya may be aiming for Tarantino but he lands firmly in kitsch.

The plot, such as it is, focuses on a narcissistic ladies man called Jimmy Cliff, played by a smarmy Saif Ali Khan sporting the campest handle bar moustache seen in cinema. He's lured by a hot chick called Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) to teach English to her social aspirant mob boss Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor in superb scene-chewing form.) Pooja and Jimmy get it on, and decide to rob Bhaiyyaji, after which the movie basically descends into a road movie as Bhaiyyaji sends Bachchan Pandey (Akshay Kumar) to retrieve his phat cash. The rest of the movie unfolds in a series of lurid song and dance numbers, declarations of love, betrayal and general chaos. Akshay Kumar comes off best - playing his typical louder than life, working class miscreant with a heart of gold character. The other actors all seem to be having a good time. My mind started to wander after the first hour.

TASHAN was released in April 2008.

NAMASTEY LONDON - bear with it....

NAMASTEY LONDON is an infuriating film. Which is not to say that it doesn't work on some level. I began by watching the DVD extras, including some interviews with the cast and crew. Director Vipul Amrutlal Shah, the man behind WAQT: A RACE AGAINST TIME, was keen to emphasise that this was NOT a typical Hindi film. He wanted to avoid those typical dance numbers in front of famous London landmarks and photograph the real streets where ex-pats live. The lead actors, Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif, were also keen to emphasise that their characters were just normal people - nothing special. Akshay's Punjabi boy, Arjun Singh, should not be over-played as a village idiot. And Katrina's London-bred modern girl, Jasmeet, should not be a caricature either. The movie should be a funny, moving tale of love between two opposites with some soft-pedalled social criticism thrown in.

So imagine my surprise when I started watching the film. It is about as unrealistic as any Bollywood movie ever tried to be, with London and Indian iconic landmarks up the wazoo. Despite being a London bus-driver, Jasmeet's father somehow lives in Hampstead-style mansion. Jasmeet herself is no modern career girl in a dull office. Rather she skips into work in a mini-skirt and has a desk over-looking St Paul's Cathedral! But the real kicker is that her English boyfriend, hillariously called Charlie Brown, lives in an English country house full of antiques and while he looks about thirty he has apparently been divorced three times. 45 minutes into the film, Jasmeet's father packs the family off to India and marries her off to the Punjabi boy. Again caricatures. Punjabis drink milk straight from the cow, drink too much alcohol and eat too much ghee!

Still, these flaws are common to the genre, and if we look for identifiers of quality in an old-fashioned Bollywood film we have to ask two questions: how were the song and dance numbers and did we feel all sappy about the central love story? The songs were basically mediocre so no luck there. But where the film does luck out is in casting Akshay. Because while Akshay has a very narrow range, he can certainly do what he does well - and that's the good-hearted simple boy turned romantic hero. He really looks heart-broken when Jasmeet dumps him and we will him to get back together with her. Katrina is window-dressing, although she does a good job of speaking heavily English-accented Hindi. Her straight-forward English, however, has a strong American accent.

As for the social critique there are some nice lines about how ex-pat Indians want the best of both worlds. But the best speech is given by Arjun Singh on a boat on the Thames. He explains to patronising Englishmen the strength of India. Sure, it's patriotic flag-waving, but you can't help inwardly applaud a country where "a Catholic woman steps aside so that a Sikh can be sworn in as Prime Minister by a Muslim President in a country where more than 80% of the population is Hindu."

NAMASTEY LONDON was released in March 2007 and is now available on DVD.