Bachchans FC 12-Every1’s Dreamland- P.134

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@virgoqueen

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Posted: 18 years ago

#701

Sholay Story - Plot Outline
Sholay in Pictures

Tum Gabbar Singh ko nahin maaroge! Tum yahan Gabbar ko pakarke mere hawaale karne aaye ho. Zinda! Thakur

5 Star Cast

Amitabh Bachchan - Jai (Jaidev)
Dharmendra - Veeru
Amjad Khan - Gabbar Singh
Hema Malini - Basanti
Jaya Bachchan - Radha

Director : Ramesh Sippy
Producer : G.P. Sippy

Sholay was a multistarrer with a Rs. 2 cr budget (1975). It racked up a still record 60 golden jubilees across India, and doubled it's original gross over reruns during the late 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s.
It has the typical ingredients of the more successful Bollywood movies: action (some sections being loosely based on Westerns such as The Magnificent Seven and Once Upon a Time in the West ), memorable songs, comedy by the main actors and tragedy.

Top stars like Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bhaduri dotted the film, but it was the new actor Amjad Khan who walked away with the honor of immortalizing 'Gabbar Singh' in our minds. Sholay is regarded as the first mega blockbuster. The uprighteous cop (Thakur) played by Sanjeen Kumar arrests a dreaded dacoit played by Amjad Khan and puts him in jail. Furious and mad with revenge, the dacoit escapes from prison and wipes off 'thakur's entire family. The dacoit also chops off the hands of the 'thakur'. It is now the 'thakur's turn to avenge the murder of his family and he does it from outside police system. The 'thakur' hires two notorious criminals, Veeru and Jai (Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan), and trains them to confront the dacoit.

Sholay Story Line

The Beginning

A train arrives at a rural station and a lone police officer disembarks, looking for "Thakur Sahib" (thakur, literally "lord, master," is a respectful title for a member of one of the landlord castes who trace their lineage to ancient kshatriyas or warrior-aristocrats; Sahib means "sir"). As the credits roll, we follow his horseback journey through a Badlands-like landscape to the remote settlement of Ramgarh ("Rama's fort"). Here he meets the Thakur, Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar), a retired police officer who is always wrapped in a gray shawl. Singh requests his visitor to locate and bring him two criminals, the scruffy, ever-smiling Veeru (Dharmendra) and the lanky, brooding Jaidev or "Jai" for short (Amitabh Bacchan).

The Train Sequence

When the officer asks what task these notorious repeat-offenders can possibly be suited for, Singh recounts his first meeting with them, two years earlier, when he was transporting them to jail via a freight train. Immediately after they boast to him of their courage, the train is attacked by bandits, and they defend it and their wounded captor against a seemingly unending troop of horsemen.

But their moral ambivalence is revealed when they toss a coin to decide whether to bring the bleeding officer to a hospital (landing themselves in jail), or to escape (leaving him to die). In a motif that will be repeated, "chance" impels them to do the Right Thing. The flashback ends with Singh's visitor promising to search for the pair, but adding that, if they are out of jail and at large, it may be difficult to locate them. The outdoor scenes, especially the train sequences were short some 50 km (30 odd miles) from Bangalore.

Friendship - Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge

First musical number: Veeru and Jai steal a motorcycle with sidecar and burst into a rollicking "song of the road," evoking the antics of Raj Kapoor's "vagabond" persona of the 1950s.

They approach a crooked but comical Muslim lumber dealer, Surma Bhopali (Jagdeep), with an unusual offer: he will turn them in to the police, collect the reward of 2000 rupees, and split it with them when they are released from prison. Cut to the prison, and another ludic interlude, including homage to Chaplin's Great Dictator in the crackpot jailer (comic actor Asrani), who boasts of his training under the British. The wily pair easily outsmart him and escape, but when they return to Bhopali to collect their promised thousand rupees, he betrays them to the police. Back in jail, they are located by the Thakur's agent, and Singh awaits them outside the prison gate when they are released, thus ending the comic digression and returning to the frame narrative. Singh asks them to capture the notorious outlaw (daku) Gabbar Singh; in return, he will give them the 50,000 rupees reward offered by the police. He pays them a 5,000 rupee advance, and promises another 5,000 when they reach Ramgarh.

Thakur's Village

They travel to the Thakur's village, where they come across chatterbox Basanti (Hema Malini) and her faithful, Tonga driving horse, Dhano. Instantly, Veeru falls for Basanti and tries to woo her at any cost; while Jai falls for Radha (Jaya Badhuri), the Thakur's widowed daughter-in-law.

The Romance

In Radha, he sees someone who understands pain and sorrow, which he finds captivating. Each of the romantic pairs were involved with each other off screen. Audiences flocked to theatres to witness the beginnings of the Hema-Dharmendra and Jaya-Amitabh romances. Some of the romantic interactions were taken from the cast's actual personal experiences.

During filming, Jaya was five months pregnant with their first child. Jaya Badhuri and Bachchan married before shooting began. Even the bitter and cynical Jai confesses to Veeru of his desire to get married and start a family with Radha.
Their existence in the village is peaceful until they encounter the infamous Dacoit Gabbar Singh after Holi festivities.

Holi

The evil Gabbar Singh asks his men: Holi kab hai, kab hai Holi? Cut to rustic Ramgarh, where the virile Veeru and the loquacious Basanti join the villagers in celebrating Holi. Holi ke din dil mil jaate hain, rangon mein rang mil jaate hai, they sing even as the threat of an attack by Gabbar Singh looms over the hamlet. Sure enough, the joyous song is rudely interrupted by gunshots and the clatter of hooves. A shootout erupts. Terror and bloodshed quickly replace the colours of joy. The use of the metaphor of Holi as a portent of grave danger has never been quite as effective as it is in Sholay.

Helen's special dance number 'Mehbooba Mehbooba' is an all-time rage and is crucial in giving the cabaret dancer the epithet of Indian Cinema's Golden Girl. The character of the jailor, played by Asrani, is loosely based on the clumsy Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the 'Pink Panther' fame.

Gabbar Singh

Thakur's & Gabbar's role were the juiciest ones. Amitabh Bachhan & Sanjeev Kumar wanted to play Gabbar. Instead of casting Sanjeev or Amitabh, Ramesh Sippy thought of giving the coveted role to Danny Denzongpa, a well known Bollywood villain. Due to timing problems, Denzongpa backed out. In his place, Sippy cast newcomer Amjad Khan, who showed up to the audition in army fatigues, a gun belt and blackened teeth. Gabbar was the first Bollywood Villain who wasn't a 'Bling Singh' with multiple gold chains and a rumal tied around his neck. Not only did Amjad Khan create his wardrobe, he gave birth to a character Desi moms used to scare children with. 'So Ja Beta; Varna Gabbar Aajayega'.

Sholay is essentially a film about failure and loss. The failure of law and order leads to the attendant human losses: the loss of heirs, the loss of arms, the loss of comrades and the loss of dreams. Veeru's failure to recognise Jai's intentions amounts to a tragic betrayal in which both the friends participate. Perhaps subliminally Veeru knows that it is not Gabbar alone who engineers Jai's death. His own ignorance and facetious trust lead directly to the fatal encounter between Jai and the dacoits.

The Ending

The final song appearing in the film "Aan Jab Tak Hai Jaan" is a powerful song that demonstrates Hema Malini's talent as Bollywood's Diva on various levels. This song is a visual treat because it showcases her dancing ability and also demonstrates the character of Basanti as one of Bollywood's most powerful females. In this song sequence, Hema Malini as Basanti, defiantly dances on broken glass and thwarts off the lewd advances of Gabbar Singh and his men to save the love of her life, proving that she is strong enough to defend herself against one of Bollywood's most memorable villains. Her character proves that not all of Bollywood's beautiful leading ladies are incapable of defending themselves and their men.

The original ending (that can be seen today on some DVD versions) shows the ex-cop killing Gabbar Singh. However, the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification (more popularly known as the Censor board) that has to pass movies fit for public viewing) found the ending gruesome, especially in the context of the prevailing times then, as India was under emergency. The ending had Thakur kill Gabbar with his specially-made spiked shoes. The Board objected that a police officer would commit murder, and ordered the ending to be changed. The ending was changed to show the police arresting Gabbar Singh in the nick of time. Several other smaller changes differentiate Sippy's original 204 minute version from the censored theatrical release.

Edited by virgoqueen - 18 years ago

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@virgoqueen

Inactive

Posted: 18 years ago

#702

Producer: Pawan Kumar
Director: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bhaduri, Asrani, Bindu, Durga Khote
Music: SD Burman
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
Genre: Drama
Recommended Audience: General Released in: 1973
Approximate Running Time: 124 mins

Reviewed by: Shahid Khan
Reviewer's Rating: 8.5 out of 10 < = src="http://www.planetbollywood.com/Film/Abhimaan/currentRating.js"> Cumulative Rating: 8.34 out of 10
Rated by: 238 unique users < =http://www.planetbollywood.com/cgi/ratingPB.cgi method=post> Enter your Rating: < size=1 name=Rating> < value=1 ed>1 out of 10</> < value=2>2 out of 10</> < value=3>3 out of 10</> < value=4>4 out of 10</> < value=5>5 out of 10</> < value=6>6 out of 10</> < value=7>7 out of 10</> < value=8>8 out of 10</> < value=9>9 out of 10</> < value=10>10 out of 10</></> < = value=Movie name=Category> < = value=Abhimaan name=FilmDir> < = value=Abhimaan name=FilmName> < =submit value=Submit> </> < = src="http://www.planetbollywood.com/Film/Abhimaan/forums.js">

< = src="http://www.planetbollywood.com/Film/Abhimaan/buys.js">

There is something about marital dramas that has fascinated filmmakers in Hindi cinema down the years. It may have something to do with the fact that a lot of Bollywood love stories end with the lead couple just about to start a married life and living happily ever after. Marital dramas present the temptation of being a little different but still offering the potential to move the audience with the emotional scenes between husband and wife. By and large, these types of films have been very melodramatic particularly in the 1970's and 1980's when stars like Jeetendra starred in an onslaught of such types of films with heroines as varied as Reena Roy, Moushumi Chatterjee, Sridevi and Jaya Pradha. The genre quietened down in the 1990's due to the huge success of pre-marital love stories like "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge". The post-"DDLJ" period saw a different type of marital drama emerge wherein filmmakers attempted to merge the heady romanticism of Aditya Chopra's classic into the stories of marital problems such as Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam". Even recent films in the marital drama genre like Aziz Mirza's "Chalte Chalte" exert a DDLJ influence. I consider Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Abhimaan" to be one of the finest films made in the genre. Subir Kumar (Amitabh Bachchan) is a very famous singer and he has lots of adoring female fans who sit by the radio and just drown in the soul of his voice whenever one of his songs is played. Out of all his admirers, the only one he pays attention to is Chitra (Bindu) whom he flirts with often at the annoyance of his manager/agent Chandru (Asrani). One day, Subir receives a letter from his aunt (Durga Khote) who raised him when he was little. He runs to her home for a reunion meeting. There he encounters and falls in love with Uma Devi (Jaya Bhaduri) who is his aunt's grand-daughter. Uma is also a very talented singer and after their marriage, Subir vows that he will only sing with Uma from now on (her voice is praised by her husband's friends when she sings at a party). That promise is quickly broken when a film producer approaches Subir to request Uma to sing for the lead heroine in a film. Subir happily accepts and Uma reluctantly obliges to sing on her own. Offers pour in and Uma's star begins to shine brighter than her own husband's. Subir is then consumed by jealousy as his own stardom begins to fade. Marital upsets can be quite dull to watch because the things that disturb the couple are often quite trivial or petty. If it's not that then filmmakers try to liven it up by bringing in something very over the top (like an 'accidental' one night stand as in Dharmesh Darshan's "Haan Maine Bhi Pyar Kiya"). "Abhimaan" works because of the small details that Mukherjee creatively adds to the picture. At the beginning, Subir's vain personality is shown in his conversational scenes with Chitra (you can tell he adores the way she looks up to him) and in the manner he swaggers on the stage at his concert. His forceful and straightforward personality also means that he cuts short to the chase and gets Uma to admit that she likes him without pretending that he has no idea. This act of being sure that Uma likes him a lot strikes as being quite bigheaded. These character traits mean that it is very believable when he later becomes jealous of his wife's success. You just know that his ego will not be able to take it. The crumbling of the marriage is shown in subtle ways. Subir is signing a fan's book but while doing so his wife enters the room. The fan then snatches her book from Subir who hasn't completed what he was writing and runs away to Uma. His hurt is visible because he is so used to adoration from female fans that he does not even expect their adoration to wane one day. He is annoyed by their over-the-top declarations of love and compliments but once they stop pestering him, it bothers him. Clearly, one does not know how much something is valued until it is taken away from him. Interestingly, at the start of the movie, most of Subir's fans who are shown enjoying his music are females. Mukherjee cleverly shows in a subtle way how Subir is more used to girls fawning over him rather than actually rivaling him in any way. This is what upsets him about his wife. In the honeymoon period of their marriage, Subir often looks at his wife affectionately in the morning when she wakes him up. But the morning after the autograph incident, that attitude changes. When Uma wakes her husband up in her usual jovial morning mood, she is met with a cold response from him. For a woman whose life revolves around the love of her life companion, that cold gesture has a devastating effect. Thus a chain of events is set in motion where the marriage deteriorates even further. Amitabh Bachchan's portrayal is such that one can feel the pain of his character. Potentially, the character of a jealous and moody husband could have been very unlikable. But he acts so well in the scenes where he realises that his wife is becoming more popular than him that you feel that you can understand his predicament. Jaya Bhaduri is just simply excellent. She moves from being a shy new bride to a victim of shock with ease. Bachchan and Bhaduri have such a nice onscreen chemistry. They look cute in the song, "Loote Koi Mann Ka Nagar", where they exchange flirtatious glances while singing in the film studio. Bindu and Asrani offer good support in their roles as friends of the married couple. Durga Khote is a little melodramatic but otherwise offers sturdy support as the wise elder. With a team of S.D. Burman and Majrooh Sultanpuri, you can expect nothing except lovely music. My personal favorite songs are the Lata Mangeshkar duets with Manhar Udhas in the lovely "Loote Koi Mann Ka Nagar", with Mohammad Rafi in the enchanting "Teri Ye Bindiya Re" and with Kishore Kumar in the emotional "Tere Mere Milan Ki Yeh Raina". Mukherjee has always been a character's director. He knows how to make a character fascinating or likeable for the audience (one of the many reasons why he is often on the wish list of many ambitious actors). His direction and handling of the story ensures that viewers cannot help but care about what happens to Subir and Uma's marriage. The director establishes Subir's popularity among fans in a likeable and heartwarming sequence of brief scenes at the beginning where different girls react individually to his song playing on the radio in the middle of their everyday life. One is stroking the star's picture on the cover of Filmfare magazine, another is applying lipstick while in another house, little girls dance excitedly. I also like the nice way he ends the initial Subir-meeting-and-falling-in-love-with-Uma scenes by showing us a point of view shot of Uma looking down at her feet. The feet indicate the steps that she is taking on her new journey with her new life partner. Where the story falters is the ending. The melodrama seems out of synch with the mood in the rest of the film. The musical ending with everybody watching the characters onstage seems slightly forced. But Mukherjee probably wanted it that way because music is one of the key themes of the film. So he ensured that "Abhimaan" begins with a song and ends with a song. Rajinder Singh Bedi's dialogues remain in your minds because they etch out the characters clearly. When an adoring fan screeches that her name is "Radha… R-r-r-adha!", Subir's sarcastic reply is "Waah! Bara classical naam hai (Wow! What a classical name)". From this, we know that the character approaches his fans with a detached sense of cynicism and sarcasm.

Revisit "Abhimaan" and see how marital dramas should be made.

Edited by virgoqueen - 18 years ago

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Uma Srivastava

@umi82990

Sparkler

+ 3

Posted: 18 years ago

#703

Amar, Akbar, Anthony: Wait, wait, WAIT!

Saturday, June 17th, 2006

Amar, Akbar, Anthony, Manmohan Desai's 1977 movie takes the separated-at-birth, double role device prevalent in many Hindi movies over the years and puts a twist on it.

The set-up is this: driver Kishenlal (played by Pran), just home from having taken the fall for his boss, Robert, and gone to jail, finds his three small sons starving and his wife, Bharti, ill with TB. Enfuriated that Robert has not kept his word to support the family financially, the father sets off to confront him.

While he's gone, the long-suffering Bharati (Nirupa Roy, who else?), pens a suicide note, leaves it with the boys, and runs off to do herself in, so as not to be a burden to the family. Over at Robert's palatial home, he and Kishenlal have a showdown and a shootout, and Kishenlal escapes in a car that, unbeknownst to him, contains gold bricks (albeit some very light ones). Upon finding his baby sons and the note, he piles the kids into the car, and zooms off, Robert's men in pursuit, to look for the missus. He stops briefly to deposit them at the foot of a statue of Gandhi, telling them to stay put. The baddies find and chase him. He crashes, police and crooks think he's dead, but, he's actually escaped with a box of those ultra-lite gold briquettes. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Bharati runs to her designated suicide spot, but before she can reach wherever it is, a tree branch falls on her, and PLAF! she's suddenly rendered blind.

(You with me so far?)

So, we have one father - Kishenlal - in hiding, one mother - Bharati - blind and home to an empty house, and the three babies, what happens to them? One wanders to the road in search of food and is hit by a car and injured, and rescued by the police. He is raised as Amar. Another lands up at the door of a church and is taken in by a priest. He is raised as Anthony. The smallest is found alone and crying by the Gandhi statue, and taken home by a Muslim tailor. This is Akbar.

Fast forward to the present. Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) is a qawwali singer and friend of Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan), who's a bit of a chancer, running a small bar and giving 50% of his earnings to the poor. Amar (Vinod Khanna) has become a police officer. By a series of circumstances, before the opening credits have yet to roll, Bharati is in the hospital in need of a tranfusion for her rare blood type, and lo and behold, the 3 guys just happen to be there and match, but of course, no one realizes that they're all related.

As with Deewar and Zanjeer, Amitabh Bachchan's wardrobe is fantastically trendy in this film. In one scene, he appears in a red leather jacket, and bell-bottom jeans with a patch, the ubiquitous '70s decoration, two fingers making a peace sign in the red, white and blue stars and stripes of the American flag, topped off with a floppy newsboy cap. He dons a different color cap in another scene, and also rotates his jewelry between an oversize ankh (how Valley of the Dolls!) on a silver chain around his neck, or a cross large enough to belong to a bishop.

Not to be outdone, Rishi Kapoor, the Qawwali King, shows up in one scene for his concert wearing purple trousers, a mesh wife beater (or cut banyan, depending on from whence you hail) topped off by a see-thru green shirt, lavender scarf and oversize sunglasses.

For the sold-out qawwali concert (where we hear the song Pardah Hai Pardah), upon bumping into the blind and ticketless Bharati who's come to hear Akbar and give him a flower, Anthony behaves like the perfect son and tells her that he has a special pass to get them in, and once in the hall "You sit on my seat and I'll sit at your feet." Hai rabba. With celluloid sons like this, Indian kids in real life have got a lot to live up to.

The three brothers find three equally cute girlfriends. Akbar's is Salma, a fetching Muslim doctor (played by Neetu Singh) whose father disapproves of his daughter's choice of suitor, though he's eventually won over, not by the hijras who serenade him, but after Akbar saves him and Salma from a fire. Amar falls for Laxmi, a woman suspect (played by Shabana Azmi) who he's been sent undercover to tail, as she's been implicated in some hitchhikings-cum-robberies. When we first catch a glimpse of her, she's poised by the roadside, looking very comely in oversize yellow flares and a matching green, yellow and black blouse. It turns out Laxmi has been committing the crimes, but only because she was forced to.

The relationship that gets the most screen time is that of Anthony and Jenny (played by Parveen Babi), and the reason for that is because, just to add more twists to the plot, Jenny is actually the daughter of Robert, but she was kidnapped as a baby by Kishenlal, for revenge of the loss of his sons, and raised by him. Anthony sees her for the first time at St. Mary's church in Bandra, where she has come to attend Mass, beautifully groomed in a pale yellow, tiered dress and black lace mantilla (this was back when women used to still cover their heads inside a church). She has returned from overseas for a visit and Kishenlal has assigned her a leering, beefy goofball of a bodyguard named Zebesko, who soon decides he'd like to guard Jenny's body full-time as her husband. Perhaps because of the atrocious poncho he wears in one scene, or because of his eerie resemblance to Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz, Jenny is repelled and rebuffs him.

One of the best scenes and songs in Amar, Akbar, Anthony takes place at the Easter Dance Jenny attends with Zebesko in tow, where a giant egg is rolled onto the dance floor and Amitabh Bachchan pops out, wearing a squishy stovepipe hat and tuxedo, and procedes to sing the almost totally nonsensical, but catchy, mambo: My Name is Anthony Gonsalves. In between the lyrics (sung by Kishore Kumar) he spouts phrases like "Wait, wait, WAIT! You see the whole country of the system is juxtapositioned by the hemoglobin in the atmosphere because you are a sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated by the exuberence of your own verbosity!" For days after watching this movie, I couldn't get that song out of my head.

There are many other memorable scenes, including the drunk scene AB does, talking to his mirror twin after a brawl, dabbing medicine on the other guy's wounds, and another where he shows up at the church in a three-piece white suit and pink tie ready to get married only to find the priest who raised him murdered, and he angrily addresses a statue of Jesus (much like Vijay in Deewar at the temple as he was dying) saying "Tell me the name of who did this or I'll become so bad" (of course, just then a locket - containing the clue - drops from the dead priest's hand).

Invariably, the various strands of the story criss-cross each other, with a miraculous religious eyesight healing (hey, I guess this precedent is why the makers of Fanaa figured they could get away with it) ending up with the Big Climactic Scene with all three brothers (in costume, and singing), all three girlfriends, one villian, one wronged father, and a score of bad guys, out at Robert's house, which looks like Hernando's Hideaway, or a hotel I stayed at once in Puerto Vallarta.

See it or skip it?

You must see it! In addition to the sweet notion of the film, that inspite of religious beliefs we are all brothers and should all get along, the movie just has a terrific, happy-go-lucky feel to it, and between the songs, the crazy storyline, the fab costumes and the attractive triumvirate of heros and their accompanying heroines, what's not to like?

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Uma Srivastava

@umi82990

Sparkler

+ 3

Posted: 18 years ago

#704

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Uma Srivastava

@umi82990

Sparkler

+ 3

Posted: 18 years ago

#705

After spring, an autumn visit is not far behind

- Amitabh Bachchan has a whole week's shooting schedule in Calcutta with Jahnu Barua

PRATIM D. GUPTA

Amitabh Bachchan and Jahnu Barua

Calcutta, July 10: When Amitabh Bachchan spent 10 days of spring in Calcutta for The Last Lear, he soaked it all in as if it was his last lengthy stay in the city where he had started his professional life. But now, the Big B will be back in town this autumn to face the camera — this time for Jahnu Barua's Har Pall.

Within seven months of wrapping up the shoot for Rituparno Ghosh's first English film, the self- confessed jamai will return to his sasural for a week's schedule with the National Award-winning Assamese director.

Shooting for Har Pall starts this August in Mumbai, with Dimple Kapadia, Preity Zinta and Shiney Ahuja sharing the spotlight. Bachchan will be the only one coming down to Calcutta, though.

"Only his character, of the father of the heroine (played by Preity), has a sub-plot in Calcutta," Barua told The Telegraph from Mumbai.

"We will shoot there for about a week. Eighty per cent of the film is being shot in Mumbai, with a short schedule in Shillong, besides the Calcutta leg."

If the Bachchan family's close ties with Rituparno had paved the path for Amitabh's Last Lear stint in Calcutta, the Har Pall link was its producer Tony Juneja. Tony is one half of Tony-Tito, producers of Bachchan biggies like Ram Balram and Do Anjaane (parts of which were shot in town).

Har Pall is primarily a love story between Shiney and Preity. "It is not the usual boy-meets-girl story," said Barua.

"Like all my films, there is a bigger human story. While the characters of Amitabh Bachchan and Dimple Kapadia don't meet in the film, they are integral to the storyline."

Bachchan and Dimple had come together — disastrously — in 2004 for Hum Kaun Hai, produced by Soni Juneja, son of Toni.

This will be the first time Barua will be shooting in Calcutta. "I have always wanted to shoot there," he said.

"I find the streets of the city full of life and you can just keep walking. I have already done a recce in Calcutta and I intend to shoot mostly on the streets," he further added.

That may not be so easy this time, with his protagonist sure to be mobbed, har pal.

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Uma Srivastava

@umi82990

Sparkler

+ 3

Posted: 18 years ago

#706

Proud Bollywood Star Amitabh Bachchan Refuses Hollywood Email Offer
By Staff
Jul 10, 2007

Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has turned down the chance to star in a Ridley Scott movie, because he was offered the role by email.

The 64-year-old actor - the biggest name in the Indian movie industry - has hinted he could be persuaded to star alongside Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in Body Of Lies, but only if he is granted a meeting with a member of the production team.

Bachchan says, "The email for this offer came from (Indian director) Mira Nair's office. Someone from Ridley Scott's unit has to come to me and tell me the story. Just an offer on the e-mail from a third party isn't enough.

"Besides, they want to shoot in September (07). It seems impossible for me to leave behind my commitments here to do this film.

"I've asked for the script. Right now I don't have any idea about my role or the theme. Where's the question of saying yes without getting the details?"