Tag Archives: Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

Movie Review: Kill (2023)

2 Replies

3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent Kill on Amazon Prime

Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions deviates from its signature lush romantic dramas to produce Kill, an extremely violent movie that is visually stunning in its own way. After wowing audiences at its Toronto International Film Festival premiere in 2023, Kill found an international distributor in Lionsgate, which is giving the movie a major theatrical release in the United States on July 4, 2024.

Kill‘s protagonist Amrit is played by TV actor Lakshya, who makes his big-screen debut in the first of the three movies he’s under contract for with Dharma Productions. Amrit is an Indian Army commando who returns from an assignment to a slew of missed messages from his girlfriend Tulika (Tooth Pari‘s Tanya Maniktala). Tulika’s powerful, well-connected father has arranged her engagement to another man, and Amrit must rescue her before the wedding.

Amrit crashes Tulika’s engagement party while his friend and fellow commando Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) waits in the getaway car. Tulika says it’ll be safer for Amrit to rescue her after her family’s overnight train ride to Delhi, so he and Viresh sneak onto the train.

Unfortunately, the train is targeted by an extended family of about three dozen bandits who intend to isolate several train cars and rob all of the passengers of their valuables within 30 minutes. It should be an easy job, but they didn’t bargain on there being commandos onboard.

Amrit and Viresh are able to knock out several of the thieves in their carriage, but one attacks Viresh with a knife. Viresh instinctively turns the knife around to stab his attacker, killing the man. The bandit’s death changes the terms of engagement, and the gang’s mission expands to include murdering the commandos and any unfortunate passenger who gets in their way.

The repercussions of death is a theme that the movie returns to time and again. Whenever a person on either side of the fight between bandits and non-bandits dies, it raises the stakes by motivating the living to take revenge. Constantly reminding viewers that each character has someone who will grieve their passing keeps the deaths from being trivialized — a tricky but laudable goal in a film with a high body count.

Also raising the stakes are the cramped quarters within which the fighting takes place. Amrit and Viresh punch and kick the bad guys in the narrow corridor running through the middle of the train car, trying to avoid injuring frightened passengers in the process. Squaring off in the open space next to the bathroom feels comparatively luxurious. All the while, they and their opponents find novel ways to utilize the tools at their disposal. Amrit’s use of a fire extinguisher is particularly gruesome.

That said, Kill is more violent than it is gory. There’s much more blood than viscera, if that makes a difference. In some ways, the violence in Kill is less shocking than other instances of violence in Hindi films. Context is important, and Kill is very clear about what kind of movie it is (the title is kind of a giveaway). I found the violence in a film like 2013’s Boss much more unsettling given its tonal inconsistency. One minute, Akshay Kumar’s character is humorously hitting his opponents on the head with coconuts, the next he impales a man in the chest with a circular saw blade.

The execution of the action in Kill is second to none. Action directors Se-yeong Oh and Parvez Shaikh give every move weight, and they maneuver the characters through the cramped carriage in a way that seems physically impossible. As the characters’ injuries mount, their fighting speed and power ratchet down to make it more believable.

Lakshya is a legit action star, even after just one movie. As Vidyut Jammwal branches out from martial arts flicks and Tiger Shroff reevaluates after successive box office flops, Lakshya is ready to fill the void. Chauhan’s Viresh is no less dynamic and exciting in his fight scenes.

Maniktala’s Tulika is more than just a damsel in distress, displaying courage when the bandit leader’s son Fani (Raghav Juyal) sets his eyes on her. Juyal wisely underplays Fani so that he’s not too slimy or menacing, but still dangerous because he knows he operates from a privileged position.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Kill is that it is so good despite being directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat. Bhat directed what I thought was the worst Hindi movie of 2022 (the morally odious Hurdang), and his bandit action flick Apurva made my “Worst of” list in 2023 as well. Clearly Dharma Productions saw something in Bhat’s abilities that I hadn’t before. Credit to his Kill co-writer Ayesha Syed as well.

The whole film works because it routinely pauses so that characters (and the audience) can process their emotions. No one can fight for two hours non-stop anyway, allowing Bhat to lean into the melodrama, anger, and heartbreak the characters are feeling during those pauses in the action. In that sense, Kill feels at home in the filmography of the same studio that developed Kabhi Khushi Khabie Gham.

Links

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Streaming Video News: November 16, 2023

Leave a reply

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s addition of Shilpa Shetty’s comedy Sukhee. The new Hindi series The Railway Men premieres on Saturday, November 18.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with today’s additions of Vicky Kaushal’s film The Great Indian Family, Boyz 4 (Marathi), Good Night (Tamil), and Tiger Nageswara Rao (Telugu). Yesterday, Prime added the Thai-English romantic comedy about drama at an Indian wedding, Congrats My Ex.

Checking the Amazon Prime catalog the other day, I found updated links for a bunch of Bollywood movies that expired a while ago. Here’s what’s available on Prime once more:

Finally, I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Hulu with the straight-to-streaming debut of the thriller Apurva, starring Tara Sutaria. The Malayalam movie Kannur Squad is also now streaming (available in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu as well).

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Streaming Video News: February 21, 2023

Leave a reply

It’s last call for a bunch of Dharma Productions titles on Amazon Prime and Netflix, which will also lose a ton of Balaji Motion Pictures films this week as well. Here’s what’s leaving when, and why this may not be cause for panic.

First of all, thanks to CinemaRare on Twitter for listing the movies on the way out. One thing to notice immediately is that some of the titles on CinemaRare’s list are currently available in India but not the United States. This is because streaming rights are negotiated on a regional — and sometimes country-specific — basis between the company that owns the film’s rights and the streaming service interested in licensing them. These contracts cover a specified time period, after which the rights holder can renegotiate a new contract or shop their content elsewhere.

That’s likely what’s happening with Dharma and Balaji now. There’s every chance that they will simply sign a new contract with the same streaming companies for another few years. Balaji did that in late 2020 with Netflix. If that’s the case, then the titles may only be unavailable for a short window. I’m going to wait a week or two before removing the links to the expiring titles from my Netflix list and my Amazon Prime list just in case the films are renewed.

However, there is a chance that the Dharma Productions titles may not return to Netflix. Karan Johar and Dharma have a deal with Amazon Prime to bring their newest theatrical releases to Prime and to create new streaming content for the service. I won’t be shocked if they want to make the back catalog exclusive to Prime as well. If you subscribe to Netflix but not Prime, you may want to prioritize watching the expiring Dharma titles listed below this week.

Here are all of the Dharma Productions and Balaji Motion Pictures titles expiring from Netflix and Amazon Prime in the next week (note that the last day to watch is the day before the expiration date):

Expiring from Netflix February 27 (Balaji Motion Pictures titles)

Expiring from Netflix February 28 (Dharma Productions titles)

Expiring from Netflix March 1

Expiring from Amazon Prime February 27 (Dharma Productions titles)*

*The Amazon Prime Dharma list looks small by comparison to the Netflix list because some of the films are available on Eros Now instead of Prime, while others have already expired from Prime. Keeping track of all this stuff is no joke!

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Streaming Video News: April 1, 2020

4 Replies

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with loads of newly added Indian content. In addition to the Hindi film Paharganj, the 2020 Tamil releases Kannum Kannum Kollaiyadithaal and Sethum Aayiram Pon are now available for streaming. A bunch of animated kids movies and series in Hindi were also added: Akbar Birbal, Bal Ganesh, Chhota Bheem and the Curse of Damyaan, Mighty Raju Rio Calling, and Punyakoti (Sanskrit). But the big news is the new batch of movies from the Dharma Productions catalog that are now available for streaming:

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with lots of newly added Indian titles, including the following 2020 releases:

[Disclaimer: all of my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Streaming Video News: October 14, 2019

2 Replies

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with dozens of upcoming expiration dates. Amazon’s content licensing deals for the back catalogs of Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and the Bhatt brothers’ Vishesh Films are up, which means that fifty-two Hindi films will leave Prime before the end of the month. Recent releases like Dharma’s Kalank and Vishesh’s Begum Jaan are sticking around, but the classic Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… and the guilty pleasure horror flick Khamoshiyan are on the way out. The Dharma movies are likely heading to Netflix, but I’m not sure about the Vishesh pictures. Here’s a list of all the titles on their way out, organized by expiration date:

October 20:

October 23:

October 24:

October 25:

Streaming Video News: July 9, 2017

Leave a reply

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Heera because the Amazon channel just increased its Hindi film collection by more than 25%! Heera added 79 movies to its streaming catalog, including a ton of titles from Yash Raj Films and a bunch of interesting older fare. Highlights include Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham…, Ishaqzaade, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. I’m inordinately excited that the horror flick Khamoshiyan is now available, just because it gives me an excuse to post a screenshot of one of the movie’s many amazing set decorations (seriously, if anyone knows where I can buy this painting, please let me know!):

[Update: The scoop from Sofia on Twitter is that these may not be “new” additions, as they’ve all been available to her since she subscribed last month. They only appeared in my results on Saturday, and I check Heera’s catalog everyday. Hrmmm…]

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with two new additions to the catalog. The animated film Motu Patlu: King of Kings is now available for streaming, as is the 2016 Hollywood biographical drama Lion (which is a real tear-jerker). For everything else new on Netflix — Bollywood or not — check Instant Watcher.

2015 Thanksgiving Bollywood-on-Netflix Marathon

2 Replies

One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving as a kid was the annual “Turkey Day” marathon on Comedy Central, featuring back-to-back episodes of my favorite show: Mystery Science Theater 3000. The marathon’s name referred to not only the traditional Thanksgiving turkey we all dined on, but also to the awful movies — “turkeys” — the guys from MST3K skewered each episode.

Though the old Comedy Central event featured lousy films, it got me thinking about how I would organize a Thanksgiving marathon of good Bollywood movies, using only titles available on Netflix. I’ve posted my list below, complete with a fictionalized account of what the day would be like if I were hosting Thanksgiving dinner for my family (which will never happen, BTW).

I’d love to know what your Thanksgiving Bollywood-on-Netflix marathon would be. Here are the rules:

Make sure to limit your movies to those on this Netflix list. This isn’t your ideal Bollywood marathon, just a Netflix marathon. Post your lineup in the comment section below. Happy Turkey Day!

Kathy’s 2015 Bollywood-on-Netflix Turkey Day Marathon

9 a.m. — Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Gotta start out strong. The catchy tunes are perfect background music for early morning prep. (My review | Netflix link)
11:30 a.m. — Kill Dil. By this point, my brother and his wife have come over to help cook. Kill Dil is quirky enough to appeal to my brother, and Ali Zafar can be the eye candy for my sister-in-law. (My review | Netflix link)
2 p.m. — Dhoom 2. The great thing about Dhoom 2 is that it’s just as entertaining (and makes just as much sense) if you come in halfway through the movie as it is if you watch it from the beginning. Perfect for the time period when most of the guests will arrive. (My review | Netflix link)
4:30 p.m. — Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. The main course. Dancing, crying, family reunions… This has “Thanksgiving” written all over it. (My review | Netflix link)
7 p.m. — Hawaizaada. How about some kid-friendly fare to go with my Aunt Mary’s pumpkin pie? (My review | Netflix link)
9:30 p.m. — Aurangzeb. My cousins Lara and Jill have taken their kids home, so any adults still lingering are subject to my whims. That means a soap opera about twins separated at birth swapping places to take down their gangster father. Good times. (My review | Netflix link)

Movie Review: Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… (2001)

17 Replies

KabhiKhushiKabhiGham3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… (“Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness“) may not be the best movie ever, but it certainly is the most movie ever. Those able to embrace the film’s excesses are rewarded with non-stop entertainment.

From the outset, K3G (the film’s popular nickname) establishes familial love as its theme. The movie opens with a wealthy man, Yash Raichand (Amitabh Bachchan), talking about the particular affection a father feels for his child. Yash’s wife, Nandini (Jaya Bachchan), stresses the unconditional nature of motherly love. They smile as they talk about their pride and joy: their son, Rahul (Shahrukh Khan). Cut to a portrait of the happy family.

Wait, who’s that other kid in the picture? The one they didn’t bother to mention? It’s their younger son, Rohan, who is a complete afterthought in his parents’ eyes.

Yash and Nandini adopted Rahul as a baby, after having trouble conceiving. When Nandini unexpectedly became pregnant with Rohan nine years later, they continued to focus all of their parental affection on Rahul, leaving young Rohan to make due with hugs from the Raichand family maid, Daijan (Farida Jalal).

Yet when Rahul is disowned for falling for a working-class gal named Anjali (Kajol), it falls on poor Rohan to try to reunite his family. He does so willingly, despite being the acknowledged second-favorite of his parents’ two kids.

Fortunately, the years spent carrying that chip on his shoulder have molded adult Rohan into an Adonis, played by Hrithik Roshan. He takes his prep school education and sleeveless shirts and heads to England to find his estranged brother.

Rohan’s quest is aided by his former childhood nemesis: Anjali’s younger sister, Pooja (Kareena Kapoor). The minute grown up Pooja is introduced, everyone else in K3G ceases to matter, because Kapoor’s fabulousness outshines them all.

Adult Pooja is the queen bee of her college, sneering at the girls and smugly brushing off the boys she deems too lowly for her to date. She’s so damned popular that she can go by the nickname “Poo” without people laughing in her face. Her wardrobe is made up exclusively of hotpants, fur shrugs, and tops that are basically a cocktail napkin held in place by a shoelace.

It cannot be overstated how amazing Poo is. Everything she does is over the top. No character has every been as bratty yet lovable. Kapoor commits to Poo’s outrageousness, and the results are hilarious.

London is where the character relationships in K3G are at their best. Shahrukh and Kajol are even more charming as a married couple then they are in the early stages of Rahul and Anjali’s relationship. Rahul and Poo banter sweetly as he acts as her protective older brother. Poo’s romantic advances toward Rohan are as funny as his rebuffs.

There are a couple of negative aspects to K3G. First is the incessant fat-shaming of young Rohan (Kavish Majmudar). Young Rahul (played by Shahrukh Khan’s son, Aryan) calls his little brother “fat” in every conversation he has with Rohan as a boy. Other members of the household join in, too, as do young Pooja and her pint-sized cronies. When adult Rahul realizes that the hunky guy who’s been living with him under false pretenses is his long-lost brother, the first thing he asks Rohan is how he lost so much weight.

Then there’s the creepy relationship between patriarch Yash and Naina (Rani Mukerji), the woman he’s chosen for Rahul to marry. Naina is all kinds of fabulous, in her sparkly backless dresses and midriff-baring tops. Yash is way too touchy-feely with Naina, and she only makes it worse by singing a sultry, Marilyn Monroe-style rendition of “Happy Birthday” to her would-be father-in-law.

Yet all can be forgiven thanks to the movie’s endearing absurdity, including a song that features Shahrukh dancing in front of the pyramids while sporting see-though shirts, and then pawing at Kajol while wearing various all-leather outfits. When characters aren’t celebrating, they are crying. There is so much celebrating, so much crying, and you just have to roll with the whole experience. Keep that mindset throughout Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… and you are guaranteed a great time.

Links

  • Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… at Wikipedia
  • Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… at IMDb

Streaming Video News: August 26, 2015

Leave a reply

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with two new additions to the catalog that are sure to delight Shahrukh Khan fans. The classic Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham is now available for streaming, as is 1997’s Pardes.

For everything else new to Netflix, check Instant Watcher.