Hum Aapke Hain Koun (*ing Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit)
Apr 14, 2014 3:12:48 GMT
dancelover likes this
Post by odadune on Apr 14, 2014 3:12:48 GMT
(also starring Mohnish Behl, Alok Nath, Anupam Kher, Bindu, and Tuffy the wonder dog).
This was a huge, blockbuster hit back in the early 90s, about Prem (Salman), a young man who falls in love with Nisha (Madhuri Dixit), the kid sister of Pooja, the woman whose marriage is being arranged to Prem's older brother Rajesh (Mohnish Behl). The first 2.5 hours follow the two families from the point when the parents/guardians decide Pooja and Rajesh would potentially make a good couple, through the actual engagement, wedding ceremony, and birth of Pooja's child, while the last half-hour deals with Pooja's sudden accidental death, the parents' idea that Nisha ought to marry Rajesh and look after her nephew as a mother, Nisha getting confused about which brother she is being asked to marry and agreeing without knowing what she's getting into, and a literal deus ex machina/canus ex machina stepping in to put things right (I am not kidding. The dog Tuffy puts evidence of Prem/Nisha's love into Rajesh's hands, under what is implied to be divine inspiration from Krishna, only moments before the wedding ceremony is supposed to start.)
This is basically a soap opera with about 80% of the unpleasantness left out; and honestly, I really like this movie's take on love. Prem and Nisha sass each other a lot early on, and feud good-naturedly, but there isn't the spiteful "I hate you!"/"No, I hate you MORE" nonsense that Bollywood often puts into this kind of situation. Nisha is feisty, charming, and dances alot, just as a Madhuri character should. Salman's performance suffers in a few closeups here and there where he has that dead-eyed alcoholic look, but for the most part he is playful, sentimental in a goofy, likable way, and a thoroughly pleasant, nonthreatening romantic lead with a bunch of wacky facial expressions. The only drama queen is the money-grubbing relation portrayed by Bindu, who's played (not very successfully IMO) for laughs and rarely comes off as a serious threat. Anupam Kher (playing Pooja and Nisha's dad), seems to know perfectly well that Alok Nath (playing Prem and Rajesh's unmarried uncle/guardian) is still carrying a torch for Anupam's wife, but nobody makes a big deal out of it. When Rajesh finds out about Prem and Nisha being in love, he deals with it in a responsible way. (I don't thinK Mohnish gets quite enough credit for the restrained way he plays both the grief over the wife's death and the confrontation with the self-sacrificing lovers). The older generation can be playful and silly too, but when necessary, they act like responsible grownups. Heck, the family dog is so smart he umpires the family cricket games. This is just a very pleasant bunch of people to hang out with.
Downsides? That 25 minutes or so of melodrama stretching from Pooja's death to Chekov'swonder dog gun going off, is a real killer with few redeeming traits other than Mohnish's performance and Madhuri's blindingly gorgeous wedding outfit. The religious element is only somewhat preachy (...most of the time), but feels clunky and embarrassing in the way it is deployed. Sometimes you feel sorry for Tuffy (it does seem to be just one animal doing all those tricks BTW, which is impressive)-the animal's never obviously abused, but it looks kind of unhappy about being carried around by people so much, and one scene has it scrambling to keep its footing on a post-top on the bannister of the main stairs, before Salman notices and picks it up. The production values are a bit wobbly by today's standards, with some of the exteriors being charmingly obvious sets, and the interiors being tacky, cluttered and bland. The clothes range from moderately dorky 90s men's wear to garish quasi-traditional clothes for young women to some really lovely saris for the married women. The 14(!) songs kind of blur together, although they are very pretty and it seems churlish to complain about a movie that gives one so much dancing, including by Madhuri and former item girl Bindu.
Rajshri, the rights' holders, have put it up on youtube for free, but be warned that the subtitles go dramatically out of synch about 70 minutes in and never recover. Assuming you know the basic storyline and paid enough attention early on to figure out who belongs to which family, it's not really that hard to follow the rest of the film. Alot of these movie-length videos tend to lock up just before you get to the commercial breaks; but if you just refresh the internet tab when it does that it should resume at the correct place.
This was a huge, blockbuster hit back in the early 90s, about Prem (Salman), a young man who falls in love with Nisha (Madhuri Dixit), the kid sister of Pooja, the woman whose marriage is being arranged to Prem's older brother Rajesh (Mohnish Behl). The first 2.5 hours follow the two families from the point when the parents/guardians decide Pooja and Rajesh would potentially make a good couple, through the actual engagement, wedding ceremony, and birth of Pooja's child, while the last half-hour deals with Pooja's sudden accidental death, the parents' idea that Nisha ought to marry Rajesh and look after her nephew as a mother, Nisha getting confused about which brother she is being asked to marry and agreeing without knowing what she's getting into, and a literal deus ex machina/canus ex machina stepping in to put things right (I am not kidding. The dog Tuffy puts evidence of Prem/Nisha's love into Rajesh's hands, under what is implied to be divine inspiration from Krishna, only moments before the wedding ceremony is supposed to start.)
This is basically a soap opera with about 80% of the unpleasantness left out; and honestly, I really like this movie's take on love. Prem and Nisha sass each other a lot early on, and feud good-naturedly, but there isn't the spiteful "I hate you!"/"No, I hate you MORE" nonsense that Bollywood often puts into this kind of situation. Nisha is feisty, charming, and dances alot, just as a Madhuri character should. Salman's performance suffers in a few closeups here and there where he has that dead-eyed alcoholic look, but for the most part he is playful, sentimental in a goofy, likable way, and a thoroughly pleasant, nonthreatening romantic lead with a bunch of wacky facial expressions. The only drama queen is the money-grubbing relation portrayed by Bindu, who's played (not very successfully IMO) for laughs and rarely comes off as a serious threat. Anupam Kher (playing Pooja and Nisha's dad), seems to know perfectly well that Alok Nath (playing Prem and Rajesh's unmarried uncle/guardian) is still carrying a torch for Anupam's wife, but nobody makes a big deal out of it. When Rajesh finds out about Prem and Nisha being in love, he deals with it in a responsible way. (I don't thinK Mohnish gets quite enough credit for the restrained way he plays both the grief over the wife's death and the confrontation with the self-sacrificing lovers). The older generation can be playful and silly too, but when necessary, they act like responsible grownups. Heck, the family dog is so smart he umpires the family cricket games. This is just a very pleasant bunch of people to hang out with.
Downsides? That 25 minutes or so of melodrama stretching from Pooja's death to Chekov's
Rajshri, the rights' holders, have put it up on youtube for free, but be warned that the subtitles go dramatically out of synch about 70 minutes in and never recover. Assuming you know the basic storyline and paid enough attention early on to figure out who belongs to which family, it's not really that hard to follow the rest of the film. Alot of these movie-length videos tend to lock up just before you get to the commercial breaks; but if you just refresh the internet tab when it does that it should resume at the correct place.