Om Shanthi Om _Released on 9th November with Great Expectation !

Om Shanti Om

My jaw drops on seeing a shirtless Shahrukh Khan. The closest I can recall seeing his waxed chest is through that transparent shirt in the song Sooraj hua madhham… in Karan Johar’s Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham. Even if I am shaken and stirred, the journalist in me pretends not to show it. But SRK is hell-bent on showing off his body, and dissecting it—down to why he got the left nipple pierced and not the right. “How do you think I look,” he asks everyone around, including the rather baffled CNN crew that has specially flown down from the US post the success of Chak De! India to capture the inexplicable appeal of King Khan.


t’s a rhetorical question; it demands nothing but approval. But before I can react, director Farah Khan pitches in: “Your body is like John’s (Abraham) and you are dancing like Hrithik.” SRK’s famous dimples get switched on bright: “I have the abs; I don’t need to act now.”

It is the very last shooting schedule of King Khan’s forthcoming home production, Om Shanti Om (OSO). The cheesy number, Dil mein mere hai darde disco is being canned at the swanky Yashraj Studio. Being on the sets is an other-worldly, out-of-the body experience. It’s hard not to get intimidated by such full-on Bollywood kitsch. Shirtless SRK in faux leather pants is shaking his booty alongside tall, lissom white girls, wearing golliwog wigs, leopard print leotards and hoop earrings. A huge eagle provides a Chandamama-like backdrop, while welders perched precariously on the roof create sparkles that provide a shooting star effect. The theme is ‘fire’ and the song will move on to the ‘water’ and ‘wind’ themes, I am told. Meanwhile, a pregnant Farah Khan, expecting triplets, and complaining of morning sickness in between shots, is angry at the cameraperson for cutting SRK’s crotch from the frame. “We are not shooting a Bengali art film here, get it (the crotch) back,” she roars on the mike, and stretches herself on the director’s couch.SRK is in a jolly good mood. Unsparingly mocking, he sends up everything for a lark: the ‘Yashraj Films’-inscribed cutlery with which he eats his McDonald’s burger, Rahul Rawail’s new film, Buddha Mar Gaya, and a news item in the Economic Times which quotes a ‘prosumer’ survey to declare that Ram Gopal Varma’s Darling will be the biggest hit of 2007. The mention of fire is enough for him to tell us a hilarious anecdote about watching Deepa Mehta’s film of the same name in the company of his mother-in-law and squirming all the way. SRK even sends up SRK. He complains to Farah about how he hates shooting with the leggy models: “They make me look and feel like a chaprasi (peon).”It’s not all fun and games. Seriousness surfaces as Khan reads the scripts of promos of OSO that will show on NDTV, red-stemmed glasses perched on his nose. The film is ready, the marketing and hype are about to unleash and you can see how keen he is to get all the details of the launch right. The performer’s job is done, the producer-businessman has taken over.

SRK is at an interesting juncture in his life. He is not just a star. Many see him embodying, through the Rajs and Rahuls he plays, the spirit of post-liberalisation, feelgood India—just as Big B’s Angry Young Man represented the angst-ridden India of the ’70s and the ’80s. And 2007 has, so far, been a glorious year for him. Chak De has been the year’s biggest hit. What’s more, it’s the first film in his entire career to earn him commercial and critical approval in equal measure. “They loved you in Chak De,” I tell him. “We will undo that with OSO. I can’t make people love me for so long,” he says, tongue firmly in cheek.

With OSO, SRK is back to giving us an absolutely in-your-face Bollywood movie, the mother of all entertainers, with a mother of all item numbers starring every single big star in the industry. In this film, Shahrukh is paying tribute to his own world, the Hindi film industry. “This is a film made by fans of Hindi films. Farah is the biggest one, I am a close second,” says SRK. The film plays out a reincarnation theme against the backdrop of 1970s Bollywood, and later, the Bollywood of 2008. Its logline is, “for some dreams to be fulfilled one lifetime is not enough”. The story is about the passion of a junior artiste, Om, for the regal heroine number one, Shantipriya (a throwback to Hema Malini), a love story cut short by death and renewed with rebirth. Shades of Kudrat, Karz, Karan Arjun and Reincarnation of Peter Proud. “It’s a hugely dramatic film,” says SRK. “The story has been told earlier, the beauty lies in telling it more interestingly.” So apart from drama, there is also comedy.Why the ’70s? “I love the films of that period—Sholay, Deewar, Yaadon Ki Baraat, Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahin, the films of Vijay Anand, Nasir Hussain, Manmohan Desai. The era had glamour and fashion,” says Farah. “We are what we are because of that kind of cinema,” says SRK. “When they talk Bollywood in London they think of bell bottoms, sidelocks and long hair and over-the-top music. Bollywood is a term which, people don’t realise, is used for the ’70s.”

The challenge was to recreate the spirit of those times. “It’s very interesting to create a period. People think period is only kings and queens. Every decade is a period,” says SRK. The big stars of the times, and even the junior artistes, appear in songs and cameos. SFX have been deployed to make the film’s heroine serenade with Sunil Dutt. Even though Vishal-Shekhar have scored the music Pyarelal (of LP fame) was asked to arrange two songs, to achieve the sweeping orchestral effect of the music of the times. Listen carefully, even Javed Akhtar’s lyrics are a throwback to Anand Bakshi lingo.

The success of Chak De has set a high benchmark for the new film, which releases this Diwali. And SRK is aiming high too—for nothing less than a blockbuster hit. The distribution rights of the Rs 35-crore film have been sold to Eros Entertainment for a whopping Rs 75 crore and 2,000 prints of the film will be released worldwide. These are record figures. Normally, the rights for a big film are sold for Rs 35-40 crore, and only a 1,000-odd prints are released.

With this film, SRK is also hoping to bequeath to Bollywood its new star, a stunning looker and dancer called Deepika Padukone. “She has a brilliant, languid poise,” says Farah. So a lot is, obviously, at stake, and the chances of success and failure are equally high. Even SRK knows that. “There will be lots of people who will have reservations; lots of them will love it shamelessly,” he predicts.

Apart from the Rs 75-crore target to be achieved, there are other challenges. Films on films are traditionally not supposed to do well. Moreover, the film will be locking horns with another biggie: Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s magnum opus, Saawariya, which marks the debut of Rishi and Neetu Kapoor’s son Ranbir and Anil Kapoor’s daughter Sonam. Saawariya is also the first foray of a big time Hollywood studio, Sony Pictures, into Bollywood film production. So, in a way, it’s nothing less than SRK vs Hollywood. As a producer, he has already made a neat Rs 45 crore on the film. But there is more than personal profit at stake: SRK’s reputation is on the line.Will he get those returns in for the distributor? Will he expand the Bollywood money market? Or is he flying too high like Icarus? This Diwali, we will know.

Sources : Filmikhabar.com

****************************************

'Om Sweet 'Om Raja Sen

November 09, 2007 18:22 IST

Hush up and lean closer to the screen, my curious friend. Because over the next few lines, I am going to tell you exactly what Om Shanti Om is. Exactly -- a word (if accurate) used rarely, but this boast is smug and self-assured, rather like Shah Rukh Khan's Om Kapoor. But hang on, we're getting way ahead of ourselves.

So just what is OSO?

Picture a Filmfare award function, minus the awards. Outside of the song-and-dance numbers and the gazillion commercial breaks, there is stock Bollywood tomfoolery. SRK [Images] mimics Aamir, Saif pretends to be Preity [Images], star kids dance to their father's songs, and much guard-down hilarity is had by an industry thriving on gossip and in-jokes.

Om Shanti Om is a big-budget collection of these award-show skits, loosely tied together by a reincarnation story dhaaga. Bas. Told you I'd be exact.

The aforementioned thread is plot-bare, woven from Manmohan Desai's most worn jumpers, and laced together with nostalgia and a complete, unashamed lack of subtlety. This is not the 70s as they were, but a celebration of the decade as old Hindi movies showed it to us, a world of Technicolor convertibles and flares and bling and outrageousness and hamming and tan-tan-ta-da background scores, all in a day's work.

This is a big movie, well and truly in love with itself. And if you aren't into that sort of thing, if you pooh-pooh Koffee With Karan, and if you'd really rather watch a movie you have to think about, skip this. For the SRK-hater, the warning is doubly applicable. This is a celebration of the ultimate in self-achievement, Shah Rukh toasting his own indomitable Khan-do spirit.

For the rest of us, this movie is a smile.

Bollywood is bizarre and campy and over-the-top and unprofessional and snide and egotistical and sporadic and dynastic and facetious and utterly self-smitten, but -- without even going into the numerous positives -- that's just why we love it. That's the nasha of Mumbai's movies -- these unreal vehicles of escape soaring from cliche to cliche on superstar-wings -- and their madcap makers.

Om Shanti Om is an exultant, heady, joyous film reveling in Bollywood, and as at most parties where the bubbly flows free, there is much silly giggling and tremendous immaturity. You'd do well do breathe in the filmi fumes, lift your own collar-tips upwards, and leave sense out of the equation. More cameos are written in than dialogues, so sit back and play spot-the-celeb. Or watch the Khan have a blast on screen.

Make that the Khans. The King is all super and funny and awesomely sixpacked, but Queen Farah is one to be toasted, just for her sheer bindaas enthu. No gag is too obvious, no plotpoint too ludicrous and no cliche too overused -- in fact, the more overused the better, decides she. And if the result of her damn-the-detractors attitude is a magnificent scene with Shah Rukh wrestling a stuffed tiger and using all kinds of pussycat phrases with a thick Tamil accent, I say hats off.

You really want to know the story? The story of this film? Please, go read another review.

All I can say is that Khan lives, Khan dreams, Khan loves and Khan dies. In between -- as mustachioed cowboy and outlandish black-red costumed superhero -- Khan even flies. And that's all during a super-fun first half, while the second sadly tries to be a real movie. The latter could have sunk the movie, but despite it's total pointlessness, is pretty much salvaged by the songs. No, really. Talk about phrases you never think you'd write.

Shah Rukh Khan [Images] is, well, you know who he is. He's the biggest movie star on the globe, and this film lets him cock a snook at all that megalomania. Here he plays both wistful junior artiste and bratty star-kid, and he has an absolute blast. This is a role that requires him to overact in almost every frame, which is far harder than it sounds. And because he's Shah Rukh Khan and there is love at the core of this film, he manages to bring credibility to the romance, heart to the joke. And that is no mean feat.

The woman who catches his fancy -- and his lucky red thread in her dupatta -- is the extremely fortunate Deepika Padukone. The director uses her with great cunning, making her turn and smile while Shah Rukh does all the melting. She is used sparingly and constantly camouflaged, either by a situation which requires acting incompetence, deftly digitalised song sequences or a complete lack of fabric in the second half. I'm not claiming the 'find of the year' can't act; it's just that this film doesn't require her to. OSO needs for her to be a dreamy girl, and this she delivers on, dimpled smiles and all. There is effervescence and luminosity around this pretty girl, but art director Sabu Cyril and cinematographer Manikandan have some credit there.

Shreyas Talpade is reliably top-notch in the first half, and cut-out of most of the second, where he ages like a TV soap character. Similar grey-streak aging is applied to Kirron Kher, playing a stock character. Javed Sheikh is interesting as romantic star Rajesh Kapoor, and Arjun Rampal [Images] is finally cast right. Among that much-discussed 31-celebrity dance, Tabu [Images] looks the most incredible. I wish Farah had done without the lookalikes, but paying off her debts to Subhash Ghai [Images] in the beginning kinda makes up for it.

Farah, thanks. As someone who has to sit through a million movies, mostly suspect, week after week -- and to someone who has to toil through it and bear the tabloid attention -- this is a reminder of what we like about Bollywood, what makes it so special. Thanks also for reminding us of the number of people who work on a movie, and that spotboys aren't just young kids in half-pants. Ms Khan makes me want to take her out on the town and dance (I can't, but she'll make up for it) to dhinchak Bollywood songs all night. If you're reading this, Director Saheba, call me.

Sources : Rediff.com