Bollywood hits a high
Saibal Chatterjee | WIDE ANGLE
July 20, 2006
Three bona fide blockbusters in a little over six months and several more potential box office humdingers on the way – Bollywood's dream merchants couldn't have asked for a better year.
We have already seen films as disparate as Rakeysh Mehra's Rang De Basanti, Kunal Kohli's Fanaa and Rakesh Roshan's Krrish capture the imagination of the Indian movie-going masses.
Two of Bollywood's biggest stars – Aamir Khan and Hrithik Roshan – have delivered big time. The box office badshah, Shah Rukh Khan, is yet to test the waters this year. The industry has achieved big things already and it still has much to spare.
Clearly, what we have seen so far is only half the story. With Omkara, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Dhoom 2, Umrao Jaan and Don, among others, slated to arrive at the multiplexes in the next few months.
| A still from Krrish. Three bona fide blockbusters in a little over six months and several more potential box office humdingers on the way – Bollywood's dream merchants couldn't have asked for a better year. |
Even more important, each of the big films released so far has lived up to its promise. If mainstream Bollywood sustains the form it has demonstrated thus far in 2006, the list of blockbusters is bound to swell into healthy double figures. And that would be unprecedented because we aren't talking merely average money-spinners.
The year 2005 wasn't a bad one either. Black, Page 3, Sarkar, Bunti Aur Babli, No Entry added up to a bumper Bollywood crop. But that was nothing compared to what Bollywood has achieved this year in commercial terms.
Even in terms of the range of the products that it has produced or is about to unleash, Bollywood has traversed a wider spectrum in 2006 than ever before. It is indeed working brilliantly.
Karan Johar's first directorial venture in nearly half a decade, KANK, is set for release. Vishal Bhardwaj's biggest film to date, Omkara, another reworking of a classic William Shakespeare tragedy, will hit the screens by the end of July.
The only Shah Rukh Khan film of the year, Farhan Akhtar's Don, a remake of the 1970s Amitabh Bachchan starrer, is in the pipeline. Dhoom 2, from the Yash Chopra stable, is set to vroom into top gear sometime this year.
Add to that already awesome list films like JP Dutta's period drama, Umrao Jaan, featuring Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, and Rajkumar Hirani's Munnabhai sequel, and you have an assortment that will be difficult to match.
Coming in the wake of a successful 2005, a super successful 2006 could change the course of Bollywood history. The industry is poised to hit the high road to dramatic breakthroughs. Some heights, as we have enumerated, have already been scaled. A few more success stories could make the difference between a simply good year and a truly great year.
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