South Asian women step out of Bollywood, into serious dramatic roles

BY ALASTAIR SHARP

Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra of India speaks during the news conference for ''Mary Kom'' at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Toronto, September 4, 2014

She said the film resonates in part because of recent high profile cases of sexual violence that caught world attention.stepped beyond Bollywood song-and-dance to show South Asian women grappling with male-dominated sport, child marriage, and sexual desire of people with disability in their premieres at the Toronto Film Festival.

While the stories told vastly different tales, all sought to challenge their home audiences and provoke change. Two of them used established Indian stars to do it.

In "Mary Kom," former Miss World Priyanka Chopra plays the real-life title role of a five-time world champion boxer taking on bullying boys and then corrupt officials while also juggling marriage and motherhood.

Chopra, a Bollywood superstar, did not use a stunt double for the fight scenes and took on a punishing training regime to give her petite frame a more athletic form.

"It's a time where the country is coming together to say 'we protect our women and we give them rights' and the women are coming together and saying 'we're tough, we're strong, we're not going to take this sitting down'," she told Reuters.

The biopic was bankrolled in part by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, a major Bollywood player, and has faced criticism in India for overly dramatizing the life of a national icon.

Meanwhile, first-time feature film director Afia Nathaniel struggled to find local financing for her film "Dukhtar" (Daughter), about a Pakistani woman fleeing a marriage her husband had arranged for their 10-year-old daughter.

After years in the funding wilderness, Norway's Sorfund came on board, helping the film garner additional backers.

"Our local film industry is in shambles and financiers want to see masala films with women wearing almost nothing dancing and gyrating on the screen," she said. "Masala films" refers to the mixing of genres in mainstream South Asian film.

Filming in a remote part of the disputed Kashmiri region had to be halted at one point under threat of a fatwa issued by a local religious authority.

For director Shonali Bose, an outburst from her cousin and the death of her teenage son inspired "Margarita, With A Straw," about a young woman with cerebral palsy who explores her budding sexuality in a film Bose expects will shock Indian viewers.

The film will have a wide domestic release but must first make it past censors who will screen female masturbation and lesbian sex scenes.

"I deliberately pushed the envelope with that because that is something which is so completely never talked about or expressed," she said in a interview in reference to a specific masturbation scene.

"You're not supposed to fulfill your own sexual needs. That's considered bad."

That the character is also disabled adds another layer, said leading actress and Bollywood star Kalki Koechlin.

"It's pushing borders, not just about disability but about the way we think in terms of community and caste in India and how we place people in different boxes quite conveniently."

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Ken Wills)source:CREDIT: REUTERS/MARK BLINCH

Movie review: Actor Ravi Teja's Power is botched up entertainment.

Director: KS Ravindra
Cast: Ravi Teja, Hansika Motwani, Brahmanadam, Regina Cassandra, Sampath Raj, Harish Uthaman, Mukesh Rishi, Posani Krishna Murali and Prakash Raj
Rating: 1

Ravi Teja

Writer-director KS Ravindra aka Bobby, who has earlier penned stories for Ravi Teja's successful films such as Don Seenu and Balupu, conveniently borrows from his own films and a few other popular ones to make Power, which by all standards is one of the worst films in the actor Ravi Teja's career.

Power has been made with the intention of offering audiences many films for the price of one ticket. People who come out after watching the film, will realise that they've watched films such as Gentleman, Vikramarkudu, Kick and Billa. But the irony is that the end product is not even half as good as the films it has been inspired from.

If in Don Seenu, Ravi's character aspired to become a don and eventually landed a job with a local don, he wishes to become a police officer in Power and achieves his goal by slipping into the shoes of his doppelganger, a corrupt police officer who meets with a fatal accident. At this juncture, you're also reminded of Vikramarkudu and Billa, which more or less have a similar storyline.

While in Kick, Ravi robs corrupt politicians and businessmen for the greater good, he turns a corrupt policeman for a similar reason. The makers perhaps felt this would leave audiences teary-eyed, but it was outright lame.

Also watch: Power trailer

Bobby also borrows from Shankar's Gentleman when he makes a mother sacrifice her life for her son. He throws in predictable twists too at regular intervals, but these really don't catch audience off guard. If you're an intelligent viewer, you can easily guess what's coming your way.

The excruciatingly painful dance sequence, which was supposed to evoke laughter, in the climax is lifted from Balupu.

Power is Ravi Teja's show all the way, but we are otherwise let down by some bad performances even with a talented cast of Sampath and Harish. Brahmanandam and Saptagiri, roped in to provide the laughs, entertain us barely for a few minutes.

Hansika and Regina hardly have any scope for performance. It's disheartening to see that these young and talented heroines are merely used to up the glamour quotient.

Power shows how lazy Telugu filmmakers who team up with stars have become. A lot of these star-studded films that are lavishly made on a high-budget don't work anymore because they follow an archaic style of filmmaking. There's no need to stop making commercial films, which is what the masses still prefer watching, but one should know how to make it differently.

Power is botched up entertainment.source.HT.

Movie review by Rashid Irani: Even Bruce Willis, John Cusack can't save The Prince.Rashid Irani, Hindustan Times   September 13, 2014

Film: The Prince
Direction: Brian A Miller
Actors: Jason Patric, Jessica Lowndes
Rating: 1/5

Their names may be above the title but don’t let that fool you. Saddled with insignificant supporting roles, Bruce Willis and John Cusack barely tap into their considerable talents preferring instead to just pocket their (presumably hefty) pay cheques. The real star (if he can be called that) of this kidnap thriller is Jason Patric.

An expressionless wonder, he portrays a distraught dad who high tails it to New Orleans to search for his missing daughter (Gia Mantegna, comatose). His mission puts him at cross-purposes with a drug lord, a vengeance-seeking mobster (Willis) and a battalion of brutes.

The shootouts and chases are staged so ineptly that it’s difficult to figure out who’s doing what to whom and why. Worst of all, not a single law enforcement officer can be glimpsed as the body count rises and public property is wantonly destroyed.

It’s almost as if the city’s police force has gone on vacation. Incidentally, cuss words have been bleeped from practically every sentence. Why not bleep out the dire dialogue entirely? That may at least have made The Prince more fun to watch.source HT.

Banging Response: 'Bang Bang' teaser creates history?

Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif's forthcoming film `Bang Bang` seems to be on the right track. The movie's action-packed teaser was viewed by over 2.3 million viewers within 24 hours of its release.

Unveiled Wednesday at 8 a.m., the teaser has so far received over 2,400,000 views on videosharing platform YouTube and the numbers are still on the rise.

Hrithik and Katrina, who shared a crackling chemistry in the hit film "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara", have also been appreciated for their looks in the movie by star friends like Priyanka Chopra, Karan Johar, Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor.

The teaser has a heavy dose of guns, explosions and death-defying action stunts.



Directed by Siddharth Anand, "Bang Bang" is produced by Fox Star Studios and is being touted as the biggest action-romance of the year.

It will hit the screens on Gandhi Jayanti, which falls on Oct 2.

Watch the first look of Sidharth Malhotra and Shraddha Kapoor starrer 'Ek Villain'

Sidharth Malhotra is riding high on the success of his last two releases and even Shraddha Kapoor has come out fresh from the success of her last flick with Aditya Roy Kapur. 

In their next film, 'Ek Villain', the trailer opens with romantic and lovable moments between the couple. They are shown getting intimate and some lovely grand scenes establish the love track. 

But, in a rapid turn of events, the romantic tone changes to villainous tone (as the title suggests) as we see an injured Shraddha being pushed off the building by a masked stranger. Suspense goes a notch higher when we see a calm Sidharth going violent and attacking everyone in the fray. So, is he the Villain or is he not? 

To add to the chaos, Riteish Deshmukh is shown at the end walking away at a railway station as the promo closes. There are many questions on the viewers minds as the promo plays out. 

While Sidharth looks the part of a brooding lover and a ruffian villain​, Shraddha looks innocent and lovely. 

Produced by Balaji Motion Pictures, the movie is set to hit the theatre on 27th June 2014. 

Ek Villain is an action romance film directed by Mohit Suri. It features Sidharth Malhotra, Riteish Deshmukh, Shraddha Kapoor and Amrita Puri in lead roles with Kamaal Rashid Khan (KRK) as the antagonist. The film is produced by Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Motion Pictures.

Aamir Khan clueless of his son Junaid's plans to enter Bollywood

Superstar Aamir Khan has no clue what his 21-year-old son Junaid plans to do in life. He says he doesn't "tell me anything".

"We don't have any command on our kids. What will he do, when will he do, I have no idea. He doesn't tell me anything," Aamir told reporters here at the trailer launch of Jackie Shroff's son Tiger's debut film "Heropanti" Friday.

"You (media) please ask him and tell me about his plans," he added.

Aamir has three children in all. Son Junaid and daughter Ira are from his first wife Reena, and the actor-producer also has a son named Azad Rao Khan with his current wife Kiran Rao. The baby was born via a surrogate.

Newsbreak: Rajnikanth Starrer Postponed, Again.;

By Santa Banta News Network

The release of the long-awaited Rajnikanth starrer Kochadaiyaan has been postponed yet again.

After many postponements the film had been `finally` announced for April 11 alongside the Big B's Bhootnaath Returns. But now it seems the Big B would have to go it alone on that Friday.

The new release date, according sources very close to the project, is May 1 .

Says a source very close to the project, `Despite our very best efforts we're just not ready.We need two more weeks and we are not willing to speeden the post-production just because we have been missing other deadlines in the past.`

This is the fifth time that the film's release has been postponed. The official reason for this the latest postponement is going to be the Lok Sabha elections in April.


When contacted the film's co-producer Dr Manohar said, `We are looking at a new date.Yes, we're looking at the one mentioned by you. The censoring of Kochadaiyaan in all the various languages is not yet done.`

Weirdly the film has to be censored repeatedly although the content is exactly the same in every language.