Kambakkht Ishq - Notepad

This was the first Bollywood movie my American Bollywood Movie Night friends and I watched - so it sort of has a special place in our hearts (especially in the case of introducing my wife and the other women to Akshay Kumar!). Yes, it's a complete NRI movie without a foot set anywhere in Central Asia, the plot is lame even by masala standards (a doctor sewing a watch inside her patient which plays a jingle every hour on the hour - really?!?), and both Kumar and Kareena Kapoor have done much better work elsewhere, both together and singly. Even the "Hollywood" cameos were in the main embarrassing - when Denise Richards(!) comes off as the best Western actor in your cast, you're in real trouble!

But with all that said, the insane mash-up of musical numbers, battle of the sexes Indian-Style, absurd comedy, and Ms. Kapoor as your typical Hot Model-Turned-Doctor (paging Katherine Heigl!) hating and loving Mr. Kumar's playboy superstar(?) stuntman kept us both enraptured and in stitches, and can be credited with us continuing to watch Indian films more than a year later. The musical dance numbers may not be great by masala standards, but they're more than enjoyable enough to musical-starved Westerners who think that, yes, popcorn American television shows like DROP DEAD DIVA or CASTLE would be vastly improved by a Bollywood-style song&dance; number mid-episode, thank you!

I think this is a good "gateway drug" movie for Westerners - so maybe it's got some value after all. Well, besides keeping Brandon Routh employed between SUPERMAN RETURNS and CHUCK, that is....

meetu - oh, we did, we did! Last week we saw LOVE AAJ KAL, which we all really enjoyed, and the week before that a couple of us (many were on holiday) finally saw HUM TUM (went on a bit of a Saif Ali Khan kick there). Though I can't get my wife and friends to go much past the year 2000 in our choices (I think the furthest back we've gone is 1995's DILWALE DULHANIA LE JAYENGE and 1997's GUPT: THE HIDDEN TRUTH), we've seen at least fifty or sixty Hindi movies by now.

I found your site, and figured I could find some more movies for us to watch, and maybe comment on some of the ones I've already seen. Thank you for responding, meetu.

meetu - I bought SHOLAY from NehaFlix before they vanished off the face of the Earth, because everybody who's ever been a long-time Bollywood fan as well as Pete Tombs of MONDO MACABRO infamy agrees with you. Now, if I can just convince my wife and friends to give it a try....

Have to admit, never heard of CHUPKE CHUPKE before today. I see that both of Abhishek Bachchan's parents are in this one - while I've seen Amitabh Bachchan many times, has his wife Jaya been in any recent movies...or is she busy spoiling her incredibly beautiful grandchildren? :) (Okay, yes I have - she played the Mom who ran the restaurant in KAL HO NAA HO.)