It was not that long ago, 2007 to be precise, when people were a big fan of typical “masala” films. People didn’t bother about the logic either, they were too happy to watch their favorite stars, irrespective the quality of the movie that they were doing. But in 2008, things started changing.

Suddenly, films of big stars were turning into flops, and many big budget movies tanked at the box office . The sure shot formula of comedy movies stopped working, which was working fine in 2007. Big films like Drona, Yuvvraaj, Love Story 2050, Karzzz etc. were big time disasters. This happened despite of the fact that all of them were heavily promoted.

And small budget films with no face value actors like A Wednesday, Welcome to Sajjanpur, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Rock On and Aamir etc. were doing better business than many big budget movies. Moreover, they were appreciated by people and critics alike from all over India. This was a clear indication that Bollywood was changing, and for the better!

And now let’s talk about 2009. Chandni Chowk to China, 2009’s first big released, tanked big time at the box office, and even Akshay Kumar couldn’t save it. What was the reason behind that? The script of the movie was written poorly, director was third class, and don’t even make me start talking about the action scenes.

And then Dev D released which was not heavily promoted, but is doing very good business and has been appreciated by everyone. One of the reasons it worked because it was unique, cleverly written and had powerful performances.

It’s now clear that people don’t watch movies just because of stars, now they watch movies which have some quality. Audience is smarter these days but sadly, filmmakers are still acting as nincompoops.
Let’s find out some reasons why Bollywood is changing and how it’ll affect the future.

1. The Multiplex audience – Undoubtedly, they have the most important role to play in the transmutation of Bollywood, which we are seeing today. As I said above, audience is getting smarter and this is our Multiplex audience only. They pay a very high price to watch movies and they don’t want to waste their precious money on watching some crap film. They want quality, and it doesn’t matter who the actor is. A Wednesday, Dev.D and Rock On are the prime examples for this.

2. The Youth and the Internet and the exposure to Hollywood – According to many surveys, a large proportion of the movie watching audience comprises of people between the age group of 18 – 35. Now you must be thinking how is this affecting Bollywood? Let me tell you how.

Today, almost everyone in India, especially in big cities, have an internet connection. Many of the hardcore internet users use the internet to download movies, music and ahem… porn. Due to this, they’ve a lot of exposure to Hollywood movies, which are known for their scripts, special effects, and superb performances. As a consequence of this, they know what quality is and they expect the same standard from Bollywood.

But when our filmmakers give us movies like Victory, CC2C, Yuvvraaj, they know that this movie is going to be another crap, and they keep themselves away from such stuff, and thus the movie flops. We’re getting smarter cinematically because of Hollywood, which is a good thing.

3. The Young Filmmakers – Young people are coming with fresh ideas and new approach towards filmmaking. As they are young, they instantly connect with the moving going audience, which I said earlier, is filled with young people, which result in hits. Dev.D is the perfect example as the language of the film was the normal talk we use every day.

The Award Functions

Another aspect which got affected badly this year is the award functions of Bollywood. If you go through the nominations of this year, you’ll find a “Reader’s choice” and “Critics choice” related voting system in almost every award ceremony. Now this critic system was not that popular couple of years back.

But this year, they are giving too much important to both of these systems. Why? Because they know the audience is smart now, so they can’t ignore critically acclaimed movies. That’s why you see “A Wednesday” winning this year, while Khosla Ka Ghosla didn’t win any award in 2005, in the major categories.

As these movies don’t have any big stars, award organizers are in a big conundrum. If they are start giving awards to these small budget movies then the big stars won’t attend the function and then the T.V ratings will drop. Honestly, if we leave out Filmfare, all other award functions don’t have any standard. They all are known for licking stars’ asses to bring them to functions.

So, in order to give them awards, they give them through Reader’s choice awards. And to be very frank, I don’t trust these awards, after seeing the winners of Max Stardust awards. According to their reader’s choice awards, best film is Singh is Kinng. This clearly explains how badly they are licking the ass of Akshay Kumar. In a poll conducted by Bollywood Hungama, Ghajini and Rab ne Bana Di Jodi were the top two movies, according to readers, and I do trust that result.

The organizers knew that Aamir Khan was not going to accept the award anyway, and people have something against Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, so they gave the award to Singh is Kinng. I’m not getting into any actor war, I’m stating a point. Check out the imdb.com profiles of all the 3 movies and you’ll know what I’m talking about. And A Wednesday is not nominated as the best film in Filmfare awards this year, how come? Dostana, Ghajini, Singh is Kinng got nominated but not A Wednesday? That’s a fucking conspiracy.

The thing is that the sudden change in the taste of audience has shocked everyone. It’ll take some time to get used to this. One thing they should is to lift their standards and stop following the actors like a dog chasing a car. And please, telecast the function live! We should go towards the Oscar way, which is the clear indication of classic movies, you can’t doubt that!

I’m hoping that the nominations of next year would be better, and fair, with focus on the actors who gave good performances, irrespective to their star status.

Survival of the Fittest

Bollywood is going through evolution and it is now the time of Survival of the Fittest. Only those people will survive who can mould them according to the latest trends. If you can’t then your career is over. The new wave is coming, and it’s going to change everything for forever.

All the big stars have to do critically acclaimed cinema in order to win awards and applause from the audience. Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, and Hritihik Roshan are somewhat safe as they have My Name is Khan, 3 Idiots, and Kites under their belts, respectively.

Salman Khan is pretty much out of the race and his career is almost over with back to back flops last year. And this brings us to Akshay Kumar, if he starts doing something other than comedy then he has a little chance otherwise he is also gone.

Now let’s come to the young actors. Shahid Kapoor is in real danger now because he is known as the next lover boy of Bollywood, which is not a good sign and if you see his past films, most of his movies are love stories.

Imran Khan is doing an interesting film “Delhi Belly” and he has a good chance of surviving, but he has to work on his acting skills and voice modulation badly. Otherwise, he’ll be a one hit wonder.

And the last two actors, Ranbir Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar. Ranbir Kapoor certainly has the charisma, and the acting talent to survive in Bollywood and Farhan Akhtar is the next big thing. With two critically acclaimed films under his belt, Rock On!! and Luck By Chance under his belt, Farhan is ready to rock.

The News Dose

If you’ve to anything to say about the article or want to represent your views then feel free to do that by typing in the comment box below.

[polldaddy poll=1377655]

***********************************************************
Did you like this post? Then subscribe to The News Dose for more entertaining posts.
Subscribe to The News Dose by Email
Subscribe to The News Dose through RSS
***********************************************************
Must Reads

1. 10 things every Girl should know about Guys – Find the most common things which girls always fail to understand about guys.

2. Internet Indian Society – Check out how we, the Indians, behave on the internet.

3. Are you a loser on the internet? – So, do you think you’re one? Is it difficult to answer? Read the post to find out.

4. Billu Barber Movie Review – It’s a sweet and simple film.
***********************************************************

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Bollywood_is_changing_for_forever]

Chandni Chowk To China, 2009’s first big release, starring Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, and Ranvir Shorey, finally hit the big screen. Chandni Chowk To China was expected to break all the box office collections but the record collections of Ghajini set a new a bar for this film. Hype around the movie is good and we can expect some great news for Bollywood trade analysts.

Produced by Warner Bros, this is Nikhil Advani’s first directorial project after the not so good, Salaam-E-Ishq. And he doesn’t leave the opportunity to include a clipping of the film in this one. Looks like he also got the fever of mentioning his old work just like Yash Raj Films, Dhoom anyone? But let’s not talk about that, and let’s review Chandni Chowk To China.

Synopsis

Chandni Chowk To China is about the story of a nincompoop named Sidhu (Akshay Kumar), living in the crowded area of Chandni Chowk, and is a cook by profession. His problem is that he believes too much in luck and doesn’t want to work hard to achieve success. In short, he wants fame and money easily, just like our Indian youth, who audition for Roadies every year in search of fame. But our Sidhu doesn’t have Roadies, so he spends most of his time in buying lottery, and showing his hand to astrologers.

And with this, Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey) comes into the picture, who takes the advantage of Sidhu’s ingenuousness by stealing money from him. But Sidhu’s Dada (Mithun Chakraborty) tells him to work hard and not believe in this non-sense. Fair Enough.

But Sidhu’s destiny changes when some Chinese from a village come to India in search of their great warrior, Liu Shengh, who is supposed to be re-incarnated as Sidhu. They want him to kill the villain of the movie, Hojo, who is ruling their village. Phew! That’s just too much stuff. But there is a whole story of Deepika Padukone, playing the role of Saki, who believes that her father and twin sister, played also by her as Meow, are still alive. Don’t blame me if you’re confused.

Action is bad!

Enough of the story, let’s see how the film fairs. First things first, Chandni Chowk To China is a hybrid of Bollywood’s 80s melodrama and Chinese action movies. Some of the sequences remind me of the famous movie, Shaolin Soccer. Action is supposed to be the UPS of the movie since it is based on Kung-Fu, but it really comes close to our Rajnikant style action, for example; with one kick, Akshay Kumar can almost cause a Tsunami and blows the big boats in air, you know what I’m saying?

Confused director

Another thing which goes against the film is the confusion of the director. He doesn’t know if he wants to make it a comedy or a drama or non-brainer action film. For example; in one scene we see all of them trying to make us laugh and in the very next scene we see a river coming out of Deepika Padukone’s eyes in the form of tears, well not literally. There is no consistency in the scenes. In short there is a chaos of emotions in the movie.

Director also tries to spoof the shopping network programs, which we see often on various channels, but sadly, he falls flat on his face. There was nothing funny about it and Deepika ends up looking like an idiot, which maybe was intentional.

Technical Depratment

Dubbing is seriously third class, even if we cut out the Chinese part, dubbing sucks big time. You can clearly see them saying different dialogues or nothing at all, but you can still hear dialogues. That’s a shame! How about doing us a favor and start using sync-sound technology? Editing really needs some work and some scenes are really not required which increase the length of the movie for no reason.

Most of the songs are used as background scores, which is a good thing, except Chandni Chowk to China. Songs are good, which I already mentioned in my music review. The Rap song is used in the end credits. Chak Lein De is the best in the movie. Cinematography is great, and scenes of Great Wall of China are beautifully captured.

Performances are top class

Performance of Akshay Kumar is top notch. I’ve no complaints against him. He gives his 100% in the movie and his efforts clearly shows. Character of Sidhu looks totally natural on him, and his comedy talents shine again. Ranvir Shorey is not wasted in the movie, like he was wasted in Singh is Kinng, and he shows his talents again and proves why he is one of the best actors of our times. Mithun Da is good as usual, you can clearly see the same intensity in his role which we saw in Guru.

But Deepika Padukone shines as Meow. Her role oozes hotness in every frame and that Chinese make up and long hair, hotness at its best. She’s really good in action scenes, too. It looks like we found another action chick after Priyanka Chopra. I would love to see her doing more action roles. Her performance as Saki is average and sometimes, she really over acts.

Verdict

Chandni Chowk To China is not a great cinema, intellectually, but can be entertaining watch. It’s undoubtedly better than Singh is Kinng and Welcome. Akshay Kumar shines again, with Ranvir Shorey who gives a power house performance. Deepika Padukone is great as Meow but she really needs to work on crying scenes.

Technical department of the film fails, especially in editing and dubbing. About 15 minutes could have been cut easily. Movie is filled with a lot of loopholes and script writer is to be blamed here.

Nikhil Advani really needs to work on his direction. I wonder how he made Kal Ho Na Ho. If Karan Johar ghost directed the movie then I can understand. If they’re making a sequel of this then please improve the action scenes. Show us some Bourne style or James Bond style stuff.

And do watch out for the products they sell in the movie, a machine which can translate any language, an umbrella which can be used as a parachute and can also be used as protection against weapons, I only wonder what material they use because it really contradicts both the uses. And yeah, there is one machine which can make you dance, which is good for guys, who want to impress girls. Only if they were true, sigh!

Rating –

Cast – Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Mithun Chakraborty, Ranvir Shorey

Music Director – Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Movie Director – Nikhil Advani

Post your comments, reviews and suggestions in the comment box below and I’ll reply to them and vote in the poll.

[polldaddy poll=1279509]

***********************************************************
Did you like this post? Then subscribe to The News Dose for more entertaining posts.
Subscribe to The News Dose by Email
Subscribe to The News Dose through RSS
***********************************************************
Must Reads

1. Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai – So what did we lose and won in this attack? What to do next? Find Out!

2. An Indian Woman is Independent – Are you afraid of Independent women? Or do you want to become one? Then read this post.

3. Are you a loser on the internet? – So, do you think you’re one? Is it difficult to answer? Read the post to find out.

4. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Music Review – Check out the music review of the most awaited movie of 2008.
***********************************************************

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Chandni_Chowk_To_China_Movie_Review_5]

The soundtrack of Chandni Chowk To China is indeed very interesting. Shankar Ehsaan Loy gives their second best soundtrack of the year after the momentous Rock On!! The Chinese influence in the soundtrack is a nice touch and brings something new to the table. The soundtrack of Chandni Chowk To China comprises of 6 original tracks and 2 remixes.

1. S.I.D.H.U

Well, S.I.D.H.U is not your average track because it has lively lyrics and superb singing by Kailash Kher. Somewhere in the song you’ll also laugh because of the funny lyrics. From the song you can get the idea of the condition of Akshay Kumar in the movie. Music is of classical genre but you’ll not be bored for 1 second mainly because of lyrics and Kailash. I know I’m talking about the lyrics a lot but seriously, you’ll love the song once you listen to it.

2. Chandni Chowk To China

After the superb S.I.D.H.U, here comes the second winner of the soundtrack, the title song, Chandni Chowk To China, which was released as a song promo few days back. It starts off really well with the hip-hop music and the Chinese touch as I mentioned earlier. But I wish they’d kept it that way only during the whole song but they introduce the Indian touch after a minute. It’s not that it kills the song but I would have preferred it as Hip-Hop + Chinese song. Neeraj, Shankar, and Anushka do a splendid job in the song. A chart-buster hands down.

3. India Se Aaya Tera Dost

After a superb run, here come a letdown in the form of India Se Aaya Tera Dost, sung by Bappi Lahiri and Ravi K Tripathi. What is Bappi Lahiri doing in the song? Moreover, he can’t pronounce “Salaam” properly. Add to that 6:29 minute length of the song, this song is a big no-no!

4.Tere Naina

Tere Naina is superb, that would be an understatement for this song. Sung superbly by Shankar Mahadevan and Shreya Ghoshal, Tere Naina will catch your attention from the first listen only. Music is so good that sometimes I feel that I’m in the future while listening to it. I know it sounds stupid but seriously, there is something really good about this song. Best song of the soundtrack hands down and kudos to SEL for giving us such a fabulous track.

5. Chak Lein De

While S.I.D.H.U was a superb song by Kailash, Chak Lein De on the other hand is an above average song. It you listen to it 4 or 5 times it’ll surely grow on you mainly because of the lyrics and santoor in the song. Kailash gives the right amount of energy required for the song and makes it worth a listen.

6. C C 2 C

Now here we have Akhsay Kumar trying to rap in Punjabi with Punjabi rapper Bohemia. Sounds interesting, right? But Akshay is a big letdown in this one. You can clearly figure out that Akshay is trying so hard to rhyme but it’s not working at all. He sounds like a wannabe. Add to that self-proclaimed lyrics “Saara Bollywood ek mera koi nahi mel, acting karne chale hazaroon baadshah ek baaki saare fail.” This is not a very good idea Mr. Akshay Kumar. You sound really arrogant.

Verdict

Chandni Chowk To China is a sure shot winner for Shankar Ehsaan Loy and for the entire team of the movie. It’s a really fresh soundtrack with great lyrics and superb singing. Tere Naina clearly stands out and will be loved by all. Title track and S.I.D.H.U are two chart-buster songs and rest of the stuff is just average material. Also check out the covers of Chandni Chowk To China, Deepika looks stunning in her two avatars.

Rating –

Cast – Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Mithun Chakraborty, Ranvir Shorey

Music Director – Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Movie Director – Nikhil Advani

Post your comments, reviews and suggestions in the comment box below and I’ll reply to them and vote in the poll.

[polldaddy poll=1167526]

***********************************************************
Did you like this post? Then subscribe to The News Dose for more entertaining posts.
Subscribe to The News Dose by Email
Subscribe to The News Dose through RSS
***********************************************************
Must Reads

1. Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai – So what did we lose and won in this attack? What to do next? Find Out!

2. An Indian Woman is Independent – Are you afraid of Independent women? Or do you want to become one? Then read this post.

3. Are you a loser on the internet? – So, do you think you’re one? Is it difficult to answer? Read the post to find out.

4. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Music Review – Check out the music review of the most awaited movie of 2008.
***********************************************************

[digg=http://digg.com/music/Chandni_Chowk_To_China_Music_Review]