herbiehancock

Original Title : Gunda (Hooligan) Year : 1998 Director : Kanti Shah Writer : Bashir Babar IMDb : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497915/ Genre : Bollywood Action Synopsis: Shankar, a coolie, comes in the way of the bad guys, Bulla and his cronies. They kill his father and sister. Shankar vows revenge and eliminates all of them in bizarre and gruesome fashion. I really want this on a shirt This is the sort of movie that introduced me to Bollywood. It's a B-movie in every sense of the term. And believe me, a Bollywood B-movie from this time feels like a D-movie for us here in the US. I've seen people compare Gunda to Plan 9 From Outer Space , a sentiment I can somewhat get behind despite there being a lack of stock footage like in Mr. Wood 's opus. Sorry, movie fans... no octopus here! But at least half the film takes place on a tarmac... that's good for something, yeah? Full of completely odd directorial choices, one has to wonder if much of this film is a tongue-in-cheek ...

...check out 2 other Amitabh films I've watched recently. Yes, this is a lazy way to review something, but I don't want to keep the Bollywood coverage going on for too too long. The first is 1978's Don . Synopsis: A ruthless gangster named Don is killed during a scuffle with the police. Since only DSP DeSilva knows of this incident, he recruits another person named Vijay who is a spitting image of Don. Vijay is planted in Don's place in Don's gang and DeSilva has a plan to nab the entire gang in this way. But when DeSilva dies during a raid, the secret that Vijay is not Don is also buried with him. Now Vijay is on the run - from the police and the criminal gang - and has to find the last piece of evidence to prove his real identity before it is too late. I didn't like this movie as much as I liked Zanjeer when I first saw it, and I believe that is because the length of this one really got to me. Having just watched the two and a half hour Zanjeer the day before,...

Original Title : Zanjeer (The Chain) Year : 1973 Director : Prakash Mehra Writer : Javed Akhtar , Salim Khan IMDb : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070947/ Genre : Bollywood, action Synopsis: The world erodes around Vijay, an honest police officer. He is jailed for 6 months on false charges, trapped by gang leader Teja. When Vijay is released from jail, he plans to take revenge. Oh baby... Bollywood + Eurocrime Bollycrime? Curryeurocrime? This film is the one responsible for making Amitabh Bachchan a superstar and started a series of films featuring his new "angry young man" style character. I was surprised when watching this how much like a Eurocrime film it ended up feeling like. It opens with a young Vijay and his parents celebrating Diwali. Vijay's dad, a career criminal, has told his boss that he is leaving the life of crime and going straight. Bossman ain't having this shit, so he sends a man (wearing a peculiar bracelet with a white horse dangling from it) to off...

Return to the Battle of the Khans Here's where I review a handful of Shahrukh Khan's films that I have been watching. Another current Bollywood megastar, Shahrukh seems to take fewer risks in his characters and films overall than Aamir which makes them an interesting contrast. I enjoy Shahrukh's films, but in a different way. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) A middle-aged man who has lost his love for life recovers it through the love of a vivacious young girl. Ah, if only that remained the focus of the film... Like school buddy films, I love a good loser trying to get the girl film. I really liked the parts of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi where Sharukh played the simple, middle-aged man Surinder. Surinder is a good man, but keeps to himself, lives alone, etc. Then you have the lovely and lively Taani ( Anushka Sharma )   who loses her fiancee on the eve of their wedding. Taani's father is a long time mentor and former professor of Surinder, and upon growing ill tells his daughter th...

A.K.A. The Loaf-centric Battle of the Khans: Part I Having only watched some older films, with the help of a coworker I have started watching some newer Bollywood films... particularly those by arguably the two biggest actors in the industry today... Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan . As I really like to keep my reviews here on more obscure films generally, I thought I would give some mini, rapid fire reviews for some Khan flicks (all 15 years old or less) here to start things off. My interest in these two actors in particular kind of stems first from the film 3 Idiots , which premiered around Christmas and became a huge, huge hit. People at my theater were lined up, the ticket prices were higher than ever in India, and the film quickly became the highest grossing Bollywood film ever. 3 Idiots is an Aamir Khan film, released from his own production company, and it beat out Aamir Khan's earlier film Ghajini for the highest grossing of all time. Rounding out the top 4 of the unadjusted...