Don't Make Your Daughter Marry A Gang Rapist

Naya Khoon (Rajat Rakshit, 1990)

No Subtitles Sunday! I haven't done one of these for ages and I have SO MANY Govinda VCDs just begging to be watched (hello neglected Govinda Project).

How could I abandon this face?

I'm kind of tempted to just publish the unedited notes I made as I watched, given this film was INCREDIBLY hard for me to follow (also – you can see then exactly how I watch movies. Yeah, that's how I'll justify it) . Normally without subs you can still get the gist of what's going on pretty easily: this one was all over the place, pretty light on action or anything obvious moving the plot forward and so dialogue heavy that it took a lot of concentration to get what I did. Yeah...not my favourite Chichi film so far, but THE FIRST SONG MAKES UP FOR EVERYTHING.Because it's FREAKING AWESOME and Chichi looks like THIS:

 *drool*

The basic story for those who don't want to read the mad ramble that follows:

Govinda and Mandakini play Anand and Seema, doctors from different sides of the tracks who fall in love. Seema's brother Vikram (Raza Murad) is dodgy as, though, and in addition to secretly impregnating one of Anand's friends, is wrapped up in a scheme manufacturing dodgy medicine with some other doctors, including Dr Anil Verma (Gulshan Grover) whom he wants Seema to marry. To sabotage Anand and Seema's love, Vikram starts poisoning Anand's patients with dodgy medicine and tries to push Seema and Anil closer together.

Please note: Chichi as a doctor is also bahut appealing:

Shallow? Yes, but THIS FILM WAS PRETTY BORING. And Chichi is smokin'.

Now: the film as I watched it! Spoiler alert – sort of – bearing in mind that I really had NO IDEA what was going on sometimes so could have interpreted everything way crazily wrong.

Naya khoon

within 2 minutes Govinda is kicking ass

set up seems to be a bunch of alcoholic goondas led by Gulshan Grover causing trouble – at opening they are hauling people out of their houses, which Govinda protests as illegal

then they start harrassing a girl, which Mandakini (Seema?) witnesses AND KICKS BUTT.

Not only does she take on 4 hopped up rowdies and KICK THEIR ASS, when they flee in their car, she grabs hold of the bumper and gets dragged along behind so she can haul herself on top of the moving car, all so she can KICK IN THEIR WINDSCREEN.

She gets them all arrested but this seems like it's a bad thing for her because one of them, Inderjeet, is an MP's son, and bahut influential, so she'll be a target now. Obvs. And I think there is a lot of talk of bribing the girl (Geeta?) (the one who they tried to gang rape) to not testify – they mention panch hazaar rupees a lot to Seema, and she looks really not impressed and everyone else is like, smiling, trying to convince her. THERE IS SOME KIND OF BRIBERY GOING ON.

Is Seema a lawyer or something? She is freaking KICK ASS. Because THE GIRL TESTIFIES and so does Seema and there's this long monologue from the judge and he says ….PANCH PANCH HAZAAR RUPAIYE at the end so...maybe it's compensation they were talking about. The crims look really unimpressed now. OH they're OFF TO JAIL is why!

The choice of font for the titles pleases me. 

 

12 MINUTES IN AND THE TITLES STILL HAVEN'T FINISHED.

So...Seema and Govinda are at medical college. Seema's a DOCTOR? And so is Govinda? Wouldn't have picked that. IN A BILLION YEARS.

Meet-cute with a mirror,

for no real reason except to establish Seema's supposed to perform in the SUPER CONVENIENTLY PLACED charity show in like, 5 minutes...and so is Govinda! Govinda can dance, and SAVES HER ROUTINE when Seema's partner hurts himself (and Chichi also happens to know the routine and have a costume handy). LOLZ. (also, it's breathtaking OMG THIS DANCE IS THE AWESOMEST I WATCHED IT THREE TIMES IN A ROW). 

Clearly these guys are cosmically fated because of their mad dancing abilities.

Um and then they maybe have sex. Because at the end of the dance it cuts randomly to you know, THOSE SHOTS OF FLOWERS

and then Govinda and Mandakini drinking the same drink through two straws.

And sitting cosily under a tree. WE ALL KNOW THE CODE BY NOW.

Okay. Let me get this straight.

Govinda = Anand – his dad is dead? Poor? He lives with relatives? He is a doctor who a) lives in a slum and b) is totally the nicest guy ever and sets up a mobile charity hospital and c) has MAD DANCE SKILLZ and d) does wear extremely tight pants and e) maybe accidentally killed someone with dodgy pharmaceuticals but didn't seem to suffer any personal or professional consequences (e.g. there was no dramatic court case, I think he just started getting suspicious of The Dodgy Pharmaceuticals and ultimately traced them to Seema's wicked brother, VP).

Vikram a.k.a VP = that guy I always hate in things = Seema's sleazy brother who hooks up with a string of chicks and is an alcoholic and is friends with rowdies and involved in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

 This guy is in it WAY too much. Also he's half naked WAY too much.

Sapna = refuses to sleep with VP before marriage. But then I think he's all like, OH NO, we'll TOTALLY get married, I LOVE YOU and so they do it, and she gets pregnant, and he drops her like a hot potato, she disappears and comes back to town with a son. AND COMPLICATION ALERT: by this time, Anand and Seema are totally in love, but Anand and Sapna know each other from way back, she helped him out it seems (he's poor) by giving him money for his fees for medical school? Did I imagine that part? Oh also Sapna talked to Anand in the middle of the night while VP was waiting in the car and Anand got angry, so maybe he knew all along that she was pregnant with VP's child. Anyway VP hates Anand. Anyway, when Sapna gets sick from the dodgy pharmaceuticals (???) (or is she just like, really stressed out?) that Anil and Vikram are producing and she says to take her child to Anand, Seema is all like OMG IS THE BABY ANAND'S? and that misunderstanding spirals out of control.That's totally what Vikram wants because he hates Anand because he is poor, and he wants Seema to marry Anil who is sleazy and rich and a criminal – but also a doctor. Seema eventually finds a letter from Sapna to Anand wishing him a happy Raksha Bandan with a rakhi in it for him, AWWWW. End of misunderstanding.

Kindly old guy that was in Albela as the half Indian half Swiss dude = Seema and VP's rich, kindly benevolent dad who has something to do with factories but who has INCREDIBLY poor judgement about people. 

 He just realised how crap his judgement is.

Gulshan Grover = Anil who is also a doctor like Seema and Anand. He was involved in the gang rape attempt at the start but he ran off so Seema didn't know he was involved. VP wants Seema to marry Anil because he is rich and crooked like VP. Lead gang rapist, head drug guy. Oh yeah, comedy track is how a transexual called Chameli is after him for the whole film. 

CLIMAX: at a fancy party

So...Seema is KICKASS again when her dumbass dad and evil brother try and arrange her marriage to Anil. First she totally sabotages it by maybe acting a little crazy or something, then claiming to know karate? I don't know exactly but she was in crazy attack mode: then she was all like GUESS WHAT I'm NEVER MARRYING THIS GUY, DORKS. And brings out Geeta! The girl from the rape case at the very start! And SHE is all like “YEAH, ANIL WAS THERE TOO you guys but he ran off before the police came and let the other three take all the blame but guess what, Kindly Benevolent Factory Owner guy, YOU WANT YOUR DAUGHTER TO MARRY A GANG RAPIST!”

So Gulshan Grover is all “Yeh jhoot bola!” and Mandakini is all like ''Oh, LYING AM I DOUCHENOZZLE?” and in comes INDERJEET! The MP's son gang rapist from the start, who tells Gulshan Grover's folks and Kindly Old Benevolent Bad Judge of Character guy that “I took the rap and went to prison BUT HE WAS THE FREAKING RINGLEADER AND I HATE HIS GUTS NOW BECAUSE MAN, I used to call him Guru and what a douchebag don't make your daughter marry a gangrapist btw k bye”

Then Govinda turns up to kick Vikram's ass for promising to marry Sapna and getting her pregnant and abandoning her instead, and basically at this point everyone gets disowned or arrested.

HAPPYS ENDING

This was not cracktastic

Aayirathil Oruvan (Selvaraghavan, 2010)

See, here's the thing. I ordered Aayirathil Oruvan based on two (as usual) fairly shallow reasons:

1. I had recently seen Paiyaa (which is one of those films I actually ADORE and tried to write up and couldn't because it was just too hard to translate my breathless inner sighs of joy into something coherent, so essentially, don't hold your breath for a review of that one) and have decided that Karthi may just be the guy to accomplish what Vikram couldn't, and get me actually consistently wanting to watch Indian films made outside of Mumbai. Karthi is my gateway drug into South Indian cinema, y'all! I LOVE HIM. 
   
   
   
    Southie boyfraaaand #1
    
2. My Tamil friend and pretty much the only person I know in real life who ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS my “strange Bollywood hobby” told me that I would like this film for the “bad special effects and the zombies” (see, he obviously 'gets' me).

So I watched Aayirathil Oruvan...and it wasn't really what I was expecting (if you guessed I was anticipating some kind of cracked out zombie fest you'd be right, and if this kind of film exists in Indian cinema, by the way, please point me towards it, because I'm still up for cracktastic Indian zombie shenanigans). There's certainly a scene that could be interpreted as the highly anticipated “Tamil zombie fest”, along with scenes, from very early on, of graphic violence, cannibalism, along with a whole lot of dark magical peril (a booby-trapped desert, a village filled with snakes, killer sea creatures, spectres haunting enchanted ruins). But this film actually becomes a lot more horrifying and harrowing when it leaves the fantastical realm and addresses the real atrocities human beings callously and cruelly inflict in the name of selfish greed, or patriotism, or history, or just because they have power and other people don't. I'll get to this though.

Aayirathil Oruvan (which translates to “One in a Thousand”) is ostensibly a fantasy/historical epic, its narrative based in Tamil history.

It begins with the backstory:

The Cholas and Pandyas are two of the four ancient Tamil dynasties that ruled South India. In 1279 A.D. as the last great Chola dynasty is collapsing and the Pandya empire rises to take control, driving the Cholas out of their own territory, the Chola emperor sends his son and the Chola people to a secret location to hide them and ensure that the dynasty lives on. The Chola people take with them an idol that is sacred to the Pandyas. Though the enraged Pandyan army search every location, the Cholas, along with the stolen idol, seem to have vanished forever, waiting, as legend has it, for the day when a saviour will appear to them to lead them out of hiding.

Skip forward a few centuries to the present day, and people are still searching for the, now legendary, hidden Chola kingdom. Every person that has gone looking for it - based on ancient clues left by the original Pandyan soldiers seeking the hidden city - mysteriously vanishes. The latest person to go missing is an archaeologist: Chandramouli (Pratap Pothan) -so a search and rescue mission, to find both the missing archaeologist and the fabled lost city of the Cholas is organised by the Indian Government. The mission is led by Ravishekaran (Azhagam Perumal), a violent, aggressive Army officer, aided by driven, no-nonsense Anitha (Reemma Senn), an officer who soon reveals ulterior motives for wanting to find the Cholas; Chandramouli's estranged daughter Lavanya (Andrea Jeremiah) is recruited for her specialist archaelogical and historical knowledge of the Cholas and Pandyas. As the search and rescue mission turns far darker and more violent than it initially seemed, with the Army dropping like flies, circumstances throw an easygoing, MGR obsessed coolie, Muthu (Karthi) into the group against his will.

I'm a sucker for stories with an element of destiny about them, and so AO automatically won points for the thread of ''inevitability'' woven through the story – as the group face a variety of traps laid for them by the Cholas designed to prevent them from ever reaching the hidden kingdom, it is gradually revealed in flashes that no matter what the Army, or the individuals in the group do, their actions seem predetermined: everything that is happening seems to be happening in line with some greater plan. The question is: will they find the Chola kingdom, and what will happen when they do? If everything they are doing is destined, then what does the legend of the saviour mean, and could it be one of them?

Okay so here's the thing: yes, there are several scenes where the “epic” special effects are kind of...shoddy, and it's not cracktastically hilarious, it's just kind of...crappy. Yes, there were actually a few (okay several) moments in the film where the narrative veered from complicated and convoluted into...woah, just confusing. But I still really enjoyed this film, for a few reasons.

1. KARTHI!

So it's only the second film I've seen him in, but honestly, after Paiyaa, in which he kind of exudes irresistable cheeky charm (and if there's one thing I can't resist, it's a hero with swagger... ISN'T IT, SHOTGUN?), I'm kind of impressed with my guy. He starts out with the same cocky bluster

but gets to show a little bit more range: it's not long before Muthu's charming veneer is cracked when he is thrown into the middle of a bloody conflict he isn't prepared for: as a coolie, not a soldier, he reacts like anyone would: he's terrified, he's shocked and traumatised by the horrific, cut-throat violence he witnesses, and at several points in the film he breaks down completely.

I don't want to say too much about it, but there's a sort of psychological element to the film I found really fascinating – at several points the perspective switches from a third person, omniscient view to specifically seeming to reflect the point of view of individuals – significantly Muthu as his grasp on reality wavers.

2. YOU KNOW I AM A SUCKER FOR INTERTEXTUALITY

I know next to nothing about South Indian cinema but the choice to make Karthi's character a die-hard MGR fan

doesn't just seem like a random quirk, or a mere reference to MGR's film of the same name. From what I can tell (thank you Wikipedia!) MGR was highly revered as both an actor and a political leader = qualities that Karthi's character in AO ends up embodying. Early on Muthu sings an old MGR song (maybe from the MGR Aayirathil Oruvan, I don't know?) that seems to foreshadow his destiny with the Cholas:

3. THE HORRIFYING DARKNESS

It seems wrong to say I ''enjoyed'' the film for how it plunged into actually deeply upsetting territory, but I hope you know what I mean. There was an unexpected substance to this film, beyond the skeletons and cannibals and zombies and black magic...but this is where I have to point out that every review you will read of this film will contain something along the lines of “this film is not for the faint-hearted”.

And here's another one for good measure:

THIS FILM IS NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED. Really.

When the reviews say that, they're not talking about the fantastical horror movie stuff – a possessed Karthi's eyes rolling back in his head as he claws bloody lines into his own face; 

the legions of roiling snakes attacking a village,

not even the maniacal, brutal, graphic massacres depicted between primitive, possibly bewitched villagers and the modern-day Indians searching for the Cholas. 

 

What is deeply upsetting to watch – and here is the biggest SPOILER ALERT – are the atrocities committed by the Indian Army, headed by Anitha, once the Cholas are discovered and taken prisoner. 

Apparently the director of the film has stated that there is no correlation between the horrific scenes of molestation and rape, torture and neglect and murder of the prisoners shown in the film and any historical, real life incident, but it is hard to watch and not be horrified and deeply distressed. You can watch it yourself and draw your own real world parallels – I know what I think it might be about; I also could be way off the mark. 

It's decidedly NOT a cracktastic zombie film - while it's far from perfect, it's certainly entertaining and disturbing in equal measure.  

Ab Kya Hoga?

Ab Kya Hoga? (Sawaan Kumar Tak, 1977)

Ab Kya Hoga is an AWESOMELY INSANE GHOSTLY REINCARNATION STALKER THRILLER (it's a genre I just made up and MAYBE this is the only movie in that section) about what happens when super successful businessman Ram Sinha (Shatrughan Sinha) is forced against his will to marry Chitralekha (Neetu Singh), a woman who he believes is (and who actually really seems to be) a ghost who is out to kill him. Naturally, his best friend (Asrani) and his family don't believe him for a second, so poor beleagured Ram – who sees murderous, ghostly visions of Chitralekha following him wherever he goes – is forced to go to a psychologist and a holy man to try and cure his apparent paranoia and mend his marriage.

That pretty much is the entire plot, but believe me when I say it goes kind of batshit crazy towards the end and that basically, NOTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THIS FILM MAKES ANY SENSE. It's awesome.

You better KNOW I love me some Shotgun, some lurid melodrama...and after the glory of Jaani Dushman, a good Bollywood horror story. The night I watched Ab Kya Hoga? (What Happens Now?) my little part of the country was experiencing some of the worst thunderstorms in LIVING MEMORY: and let me tell you – even the cheesiest, shoddiest, most unrealistically melodramatic ghost story becomes sort of genuinely creepy when your entire house is shaking with every booming thunderclap and lightning is flashing every few minutes.

But really, my excessive joy in this film lies in 

 

1. SHOTGUN! THE SHEER UNADULTERATED GLORY OF SHOTGUN! 

 JUST LOOK AT HIS TIE!

He is my swaggering melodramatic filmi boyfraaaaaand forever, y'all, and JUST LOOK HOW BUSY AND IMPORTANT HE IS:

I am intrigued by the shape the map artist gave Australia.

when he isn't being EXTREMELY DRAMATIC (which is actually 85% of the film = ridiculous dramatic statements declaimed with characteristic SWAGGER)

PLUS: heads up fangirls! Maybe I'm actually just writing this review as a letter to myself because I can't really imagine anyone deriving as much pleasure from Ab Kya Hoga? as I did but: KICKASS CLIMACTIC DISHOOM FIGHT OF AWESOME featuring THIS:

He's gonna CUT YOU BITCHES.

SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON. Shatru, will you be my boyfraaaaaaand forever and ever?

2. Neetu taking a break from the perky, pigtailed, fun kickass girl roles I usually see her in in favour of WAFTING ABOUT MYSTERIOUSLY IN THE MIST,

Not the most enlightened feminist role either.

carrying props with ominous, significant titles,

and you know, just chilling in graveyards...

...WHEN SHE'S NOT TRYING TO ENTICE SHATRU TO BOINK HER! 

 (To be fair, Neetu, I'd behave exactly the same way).

3. I don't know anything about Tumblr but I'm kind of tempted to start one called “My Maa Says Nahiiin!” 
 

Ehhhh...Aunt, Maa, same diffs.

Jaani Dushman

So this week is the second annual Shameful Pleasures Week (spearheaded by the delightful Rum): the opportunity to sit down and specifically celebrate the films that are maybe objectively not so great - or even TERRIBLE - but which we adore all the same; films that other people may scorn, but which we embrace wholeheartedly.

How is this different from any other week here on the blog, you may be asking? Yeah...you probably have a point. Quite often the films I enjoy the most are the ones frequently scoffed at by others as kitschy trash.

Jaani Dushman (Raj Kumar Kohli, 1979)

Jaani Dushman is EPIC. Forget Burning Train – that's amateur hour. Almost everyone you can possibly think of is in this film: Sunil Dutt, Sanjeev Kumar, my boyfraaaaands Shatrughan Sinha and Jeetendra, a heavily disguised Vinod Mehra (seriously, it took me an embarrassingly long time to recognise him),

 ...he's normally such a handsome man!

Amrish Puri and a gratifyingly brief blink and you'll miss him appearance from Shakti Kapoor; plus working it for the laydeez: Rekha, Neetu Singh, Reena Roy, Aruna Irani and Sarika.

And that's not even ALL! This film is so heavy on star-power it's actually unbelievable. OH YEAH MAC MOHAN!

With such an enormous cast, the credits fascinate me – half of the bigger stars like Rekha and Neetu Singh are billed as special or guest appearances DESPITE BEING IN THE FILM FOR THE ENTIRETY (or for significant chunks). My dulaara Jeetu gets the awesome special appearance credit “above all”

like he's a super special guest star, yet – he's third romantic hero, from what I can tell, to Sunil Dutt and Shotgun, who are billed second and third to Sanjeev Kumar. How does Bollywood billing work? I thought I had a handle on it, but it's clearly a fraught, complicated political business. I also get the feeling that Jaani Dushman in no way represents the high point of anybody's career. Even though it's freaking awesome.

Anyway. All I really need to say about this film is that it's a late-70s Bollywood horror movie. Just ponder that for a moment. Think of how well things like...tiger wrestling or live snakes are often conveyed through 70s special effects (here's a hint: not well) and now apply that to WEREWOLVES.

Has the mere thought taken your breath away? JAANI DUSHMAN IS A BAD SPECIAL EFFECTS EXTRAVAGANZA! And I freaking LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT! I loved it entirely unironically, in the way you admire someone's ambition and can see what they set out to achieve and can't fault them for maybe achieving the opposite effect to what they intended (e.g. the werewolf is hilarious instead of terrifying). It's still awesome. I love that nobody ever said “You know what? Maybe a werewolf is too hard. Or maybe we shouldn't SHOW it”.

But Jaani Dushman plays that hand early on.

 JAZZ HANDS!

An extended prologue neatly explains the history and mythology behind the monster in this film's tale. Though I've been calling it a werewolf because the afflicted character grows fur and claws, and looks like THIS:

the monster of Jaani Dushman is actually a vengeful ghost who can possess living humans, causing them to transform into a werewolf-like creature and unknowingly commit murders.

But there's some other cool horror movie stuff thrown in there too. Characters have prophetic dreams and visions, lurk in the corners watching each other dressed in bizarre, creepy disguises, speak in riddles and lies and they all have dark secrets. So much of the film ends up being kind of predictable if you've ever seen a horror film or remotely used even a tiny portion of your brain; yet there were several random twists I NEVER saw coming.

Once we know how the monster works the story gets underway in a little rural village in a remote valley, seemingly under some kind of curse because whenever a girl from the village gets married, the bride vanishes from the doli – seemingly into thin air - during the procession to the temple. The highly respected Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar) can do nothing, partly because of his crippling aversion to red bridal clothing (because of the traumatic suicide of his sister on her wedding day). 

 Gaping plothole number 1: you're the boss of the village. Red bridal wear traumatises you. Just make a freaking rule banning it. BOOM! No more embarrassing freak-outs. 

 The Thakur even out-emos Jeetu. WHICH IS AMAZING.

His good for nothing, arrogant son Shera (Shatrughan Sinha) soon becomes suspect number one after pissing off nearly everybody in the village, except for Champa (Rekha) who loves him. Shera's biggest rival Lakhan (Sunil Dutt) makes it his business to find out who is kidnapping the brides once and for all.

Honestly? The bulk of the film is taken up with the various romantic entanglements leading up to the inevitable doomed marriages (come on, the brides have to get kidnapped after all) and macho posturing between Shera and Lakhan as to who has the bigger...uh...boots (involving a tug of war that is cracktastically ridiculously dangerous).

I don't want to mislead anyone and be all like “THIS IS THREE HOURS OF SHITTY WEREWOLVES!” because it really isn't. For the most part, it's like any other Hindi romance starring Shatrughan Sinha and Jeetu: there's a lot of swagger and hilarious Shotgun overacting – OH SHOTGUN MY CRUSH ON YOU IS BIGGER THAN EVER especially when you match your jacket to your boots;

Shotgun and Reena's characters aren't paired onscreen because if they had been, you get the feeling the already palpable chemistry would have SET FIRE TO THE FILM; Jeetu gets to do most of the dancing and I don't care what anyone says, I think him and Neetu together are THE SWEETEST COUPLE EVER;

Jeetu bares his chest for THE ENTIRE TIME he is onscreen (beeeeefcake) and also weirdly manages to channel Peter Pan in his outfit;

Jeetu gets really over the top melodramatically emo (but disappointingly, no crazy eyes from him this time).

I love all that stuff. I genuinely feel good watching that. It's like comfort food.

But also you can't beat seeing Amrish Puri as a werewolf by way of the Exorcist, head swivelling 180 degrees.

It's a certain kind of pleasure.