Kartik of BollyFools was seeing the IMAX showing right after mine so he asked if I would do a short video review after seeing the very first showtime of Bahubali 2 in the US. Salim of BollyFools then edited it down to this video they posted on the BollyFools Youtube channel. Thanks for the opportunity!
With a sequel, especially one this anticipated, there is that fear that it just cannot live up to the first movie, or the hype. I am here to tell you, after having just spent $40 to see the very first IMAX show of the day, that it satisfies. It completely satisfies. Rajamouli has done it again!! It was absolutely glorious to see it on the huge IMAX screen. Totally worth the money to me. Kartik from Bollyfools Youtube Channel interviewed me moments after I came out of the screening:
Everyone has spent two long years wondering #WKKB – Why Kattappa Killed Bahubali. The first film left us with possibly the biggest mystery cliffhanger of all time. I’m not going to spoiler the movie for you. You need to experience it all for yourself.
I just loved how the movie circled back to the beginning in lots of ways — thematically and visually. You’ll know what I mean when you see it.
I loved being in a first day crowd that was whistling and yelling for the big entrances. Prabhas is AMAZING! One thing I really loved about the film is that it had some wonderful moments of humor. After I saw Bahubali the Beginning, I sought out Prabhas’s other films, and in his rom coms especially he has such a mischievous sense of humor and play in his wooing. And Rajamouli let him show that side. Kattappa as matchmaker is just a delight.
Rana as Bhalladeva turns SO evil. Shockingly so in some parts. Great performance as the villain, and the final epic battle between Shivuvu and Bhalla at the end of the film is everything you could hope for in a mano a mano fight. Really thrilling.
Anushka Shetty really shines as the proud warrior princess. She does have flaws — I liked that she wasn’t just a perfect doll. Unfortunately, Tamannah is only really seen in the final battle sequence. This movie is more about the love story of Shivuvu’s parents.
There are great battle scenes, too, but much of the movie, which almost till the end takes place in the time of Bahubali the elder, is about the family drama. What leads to Bahubali’s death? Why did Bhalla chain Devasena in the courtyard? Who put that arrow in Sivagami’s back? All the answers are very satisfying. You can guess where the story is mostly going to go, just from the first film, but there are still some surprises along the way. Pride goest before a fall, is all I’ll say.
Someone asked me if I like this better than the first film, and I can’t really answer that. Because you can’t get back that feeling of wonderment the first time you saw the imagination and visuals of Bahubali. Now you expect Rajamouli to blow you away. There was one love song that literally went into a flight of fantasy that had me saying “Wow” out loud.
The score is particularly effective in heightening moments of tension and drama. I don’t know that the soundtrack songs are quite as catchy earworms that the first film songs were. But especially the beautiful harmonies of the female voices singing together in this one are growing on me:
I saw Bahubali the Beginning four times in the theater alone. I don’t know how many times I’ll see this one, but I know I’m taking all three of my sons to see it for Mother’s Day. I’ve told them this is what I want for my present — for us to see it together. That will make the second Indian film they’ve ever seen, but the first in a theater. I loved that at my 2:30 shows there were parents who had taken their kids out of school early to see the show. I told one little boy that someone must love him very much.
There are scenes and tableaus from this film that will always stay with me, but one in particular is Prabhas sleeping with his head in Sivagami’s lap. Since I don’t speak Telugu, I didn’t realize some of the songs lyrics talk about that. This film does have a romance and brother rivalry, but at the core it’s about the relationship of a son with his mother.
This is such a great film! I left ecstatic and wishing I could see it all again right away. There’s revenge that’s sweet, and redemption, too.
Bravo S. S. Rajamouli! Bravo Prabhas and the rest of the cast! You’ve done it again!
A LOT! That’s how much I Love Bahubali. (Is it Baahubali or Bahubali??) It is one of my favorite films of all time, not just of Indian films.
My next door neighbor Nish two years ago asked if I’d want to go to this South Indian film her coworkers had said was really good. Sure. I’m in. Then we go and the price was $20! Twice the normal movie ticket price. “This better be worth 20 bucks!”
Oh. My. Gosh. It SO was. I unabashedly fell in love with the film, and I ended up seeing it 4 times in the theater alone. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen the film since it became available on Youtube. I own the Hindi dub on Blu-ray, but I can’t really stand to watch it without my beloved Prabhas’ own voice. (For the love of all that is holy Rajamouli, make the Telugu available on Blu-Ray!!)
This image was my Ipad lock screen for two years, until I replaced it with a new image from Bahubali 2. I fell in love with Prabhas from this movie, and now own several of his films on DVD.
I was captivated, jaw hanging open from the opening sequence with that huge waterfall and the kick-ass queen fighting two soldiers with an arrow sticking out of her back — while holding a newborn!
The visuals in this film just knocked my socks off. I don’t know how many times I watched the Dhivara video! I explain this film to people who don’t watch Indian film as The Lord of the Rings of Indian Cinema. It’s mythic and grand in scale with fantastic CGI world building. S. S. Rajamouli is quite simply a genius filmmaker. He has a huge vision, and he’s one up on Peter Jackson because he wrote the damn story himself, instead of just adapting a series of books.
After I saw Bahubali, I sought out Rajamouli’s other films, and I was even more gobsmacked. Who else but the master, S. S. Rajamouli would reincarnate his hero as a FLY?
Even his early film Chatrapathi with Prabhas showed crazy imagination. Prabhas introduction scene has him fighting a SHARK!
Bahubali has amazingly compelling characters. Prabhas even gets to play two! Shivu and his father Bahubali in the flashback second half. My personal favorite is the queen Sivagami, who raises both her own son Bhalla and Bhahubali:
This scene after she squashes a rebellion, knifes an attacker while holding a newborn (!!) and then nurses both infants after mounting the throne is my favorite! I love her!
Rajamouli has made a film with strong women characters even though the main thrust of the narrative is Prabhas’s story, both as Shivu and Bahubali. Yes, there is that problematic scene that some call a rape, but my first take was the same as Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood’s. Tamannah’s warrior is living a harsh life devoid of beauty and joy, and Shivu delights in showing her beauty and love. And that sexy nibble of her jewelry on her belly gets me every. single. time.
I love all the music of the original Bahubali film, and tortured my family by listening to the soundtrack non-stop for weeks and watching the videos over and over. Especially Manohari.
The film does have a few flaws. For my birthday last summer, I sat down my two younger sons and had them watch the film with me -the only Indian film they’ve ever seen. (Mother’s Day this year will be all three of my sons going to the theater to see Bahubali 2. I’ve warned them this is my present!) My son Zach really liked the Avantika character, but then was upset that she just gets that hurt ankle, and as he put it, “Then, nothing!” I’m holding out some hope she will have a strong part in the Bahubali 2, but the trailer seems to mostly emphasize the romance with Anushka from Bahuabli’s past.
And then there’s the racism. Really, Rajamouli? Actual blackface on the villain Kalakeya tribe? Ugh.
The battle scene in the second half also goes on for a very, very long time. Yes, it’s super cool, but frankly, I’m more interested in these characters than watching Gladiator movie style battles go on and on.
Watching Bahubali set me on a journey of watching more Telugu films, starting first with the older films of Prabhas and Rajamouli. I’ve learned about comedy uncles, and machete fight ratings, and on. I kind of like all the violence and the machismo and larger than life Telugu star heroes. The comedy uncles I could mostly do without, to be honest.
I even dragged Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood to her first showing of Bahubali (No, you HAVE to see this one!) and then she surpassed me by seeing it what, SEVEN times in the theater alone?
The first Bahubali movie was such a phenomenon. All over India, and all over the world. It’s been a long wait, but tomorrow I will finally learn #WKKB – Why Kattappa Killed Bahubali! I have my $40 IMAX ticket purchased already to the first day, first matinee show of Bahubali 2 at my local theater. I am beyond excited that it is releasing on IMAX!
Under two hours is just not enough time for all the things this film wanted to be and do. I have been anticipating Noor for months and months, mostly because I heard comedian Kanan Gill was going to have his debut in a Bollywood film. If you’re not familiar with Kanan Gill, he has a hilarious Pretentious Bollywood Review Youtube channel, and is extremely amusing on Snapchat [@kanangill].
Kanan Gill plays the character Saad from the book Karachi, You’re Killing Me by Saba Imtiaz who is the childhood best friend of Sonakshi Sinha’s Noor (Ayesha in the book). There are films that have improved upon the source novel, but Noor is not one of those films. Karachi, You’re Killing Me at first seems like a Bridget Jones knockoff, but the unique thing about it is the city it’s set in — Karachi, Pakistan! In the book, Ayesha is a journalist with an incompetent male boss, and she covers everything from terrorist bombings to fashion shows. It gave you a true sense of her life in the city in all its variety — how she had to get her liquor from her bootlegger — and how she loves the city, but also yearns for an international life working for CNN. The novel reaches a real peak near the end when she and her boss are caught in a terrorist bombing, and her calm quick thinking saves her boss.
Noor the movie has some of the same fun light tone in the first half. Like Bridget Jones, Noor obsesses about her weight, snacks on junk food, drinks a bit too much, and feels that attractive young men are merely an “urban legend” in Mumbai. Changing the film’s setting to Mumbai just inherently takes away what was so unique about the novel. But I think Sonakshi does a great job still in playing Noor. She’s a modern young woman journalist, who cringes at doing a Sunny Leone interview when she really wants to be doing SERIOUS work.
The film keeps her Three Musketeer friendships with Saad (Kanan Gill) and Zara (Shibani Dandekar). I loved Noor’s friendship with club DJ Zara and I wish there had been a bit more of their interactions, but again, this film was really short for a Hindi film. Noor keeps the seemingly distracted but actually very supportive relationship of Noor’s widowed father. I liked the actor who plays Noor’s boss, Manish Chaudhary but they made him a sort of Lou Grant type. This was one of my biggest problems with the film adaptation because in the book, the boss is a total incompetent, and Ayesha’s mentor is another woman in the news business. Missing that strong female role just erases a lot of the feminist message of the book. If the boss is going to be a fusion of both book characters — then make it a woman for cripes sake!
Not only does Noor change the setting to Mumbai but the serious issue that Noor the journalist covers is now organ trafficking. They keep the romance with the sexy photo journalist, Purab Kohli as Ayan Banerjee. She gets betrayed in her career for the scoop she has, and that leads to Saad (Kanan) taking her away to his home in London to get her away from the danger she’s in.
Film stylist and costumer – I love you for giving Kanan this sweater/scarf look!
Kanan plays the devoted best friend with his signature snarky humor very well. You could see the loving looks he gives to Noor who seemingly never catches on. One minor quibble with the film adaptation at this point in the story is that Ayesha sees that the first photo prominently displayed in Saad’s apartment is one with her – not with any of his many girlfriends. That little realization moment is missing, but I can forgive because Kanan is so charming in these scenes.
This second half of the film gets super serious because of the organ trafficking plot with Noor’s maid’s brother. The actress playing Noor’s maid is one of the best things about the film. She will break your heart.
But I found the whiplash change in tone a bit too much. I think the film would have succeeded more if it had stayed more in the lighter rom com mode. Maybe if the film had been a more traditional 2 and half or three hour length, it could have incorporated this dramatic change in tone better.
Sonakshi did a good job as Noor, and I’m glad she’s getting these starring female centric films, but I wish she could get ones with better scripts. Kanan Gill did very well for a debut, especially in the lighter moments. I hope this leads to more roles for him.
The director, Sunhil Sippy, is my biggest problem with Noor. The direction was at times amateurish and horrible. Scenes felt awkwardly filmed or dragged on much too long — like Noor’s tearful, “Mumbai, you’re killing me!” diatribe monologue that miraculously goes viral online. I know the source material could have been a really great film, and that’s why I left the theater disappointed. It’s not Sonakshi’s fault, or Kanan’s or Purab Kohli’s. The fault lies squarely on the shoulder of the director. Sonakshi and Kanan deserve a better script and film. The last epilogue scene over the credits where Saad awkwardly proposes to Noor was adorable. Give us more of that!
The end credit song feels just completely tacked on — wait, we need a Badshah rap and throw Diljit Dosanjh in too, for no reason at all.
I wouldn’t run out to the theater to see Noor, but it would be fine to stream when it becomes available online for the a timepass. It tries to have a feminist message, with a modern Indian career girl at the center, so kudos for that at least.
Lijo Jose Pellissery’s 2013 Malayalam film Amen has all the elements that should make it a tailor made movie for me. It’s a quirky comedy about a band competition and the lead actor even plays the clarinet, the very instrument I played as a child. The film reminded me very much of the comedies of Michel Gondry or Wes Anderson. We have a cast of odd characters in this Kerala village. Pellissery seems to have a troupe of actors he likes to reuse — like Wes Anderson does in his films. The film has a magical realism element to it, like the film Amelie. There’s an inherent sweetness to the story, and a nostalgia for life in this little village with it’s troubled church.
The film opens with a story about a prank delivery of a packet of faeces causing a fued between two families in the village. This has nothing to do with the main story of the film, but sets the scene of a village where everyone gets in each other’s business.
The opening credit animated song was perhaps my favorite song sequence of the whole movie:
The cinematography of the film is stunning, set in the scenic Kuttanadan area of Kerala, where the most common mode of travel is by canoe or ferry boat. The ferry brings a new priest to this village, Vincent Vattoli (Indrajith) but at first he’s not recognized as a priest because he wears secular clothes and dances with a young French tourist on the ferry boat. He arrives at the church under the iron grip of the stern head priest Father Abraham (Joy Matthew) and the corrupt sacristan. Father Abraham is ready to tear down the church and abolish the church’s band.
Fahahd Faisal (Solomon) plays clarinet only in secret to his love Shoshanna (Swathi Reddy). He’s the son of the most famous clarinet master player of the area who died in a boat accident. Solomon can’t overcome his fears to play with the band, and in their yearly competition, until Vincent Vattoli comes to town.
There are some gorgeous set pieces when Solomon plays his clarinet in the dark to Shoshanna, and on a boat in the moonlight. But his character is such a nebbish that I had trouble sympathizing with his plight. Shoshanna’s family locks her away after she almost elopes with Solomon. Swathi Reddy does a decent job and has some spunk to her, but she doesn’t have a lot to do in the film.
There’s another one of Pellissery’s long tracking shots for a song set during a “toddy” shop fight between the two rival bands, with the cameramam ending the scene floating away in a boat.
This film should be my catnip, as I love Wes Anderson films, but this Amen film just did not resonate with me. The romance between Solomon and Shoshanna is sweet, but I really didn’t like Fahahd’s nebbishy wishy washy character. I did like Indrajith’s priest character, and he even gets his own song as the French tourist fantasizes about him!
The music was interesting because it’s entirely Western musical instruments. In fact, with songs like When The Saints Go Marching In, it had a sort of New Orleans Jazz sound to the band combos.
This is my third of Lijo Jose Pellissery’s films, and so far my least favorite. I love, love, love Angamaly Diaries, and I really enjoyed City of God. Evidently, before Angamaly Diaries, I think Amen is the director’s most crowd pleasing film. It must evoke strong emotions for the Kerala audience that just didn’t translate to me. I admire the technical brilliance of the film making, and Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood does a great job expanding on that aspect. But, Amen for me is a film I admire, but doesn’t make me love it.
A new Mani Ratnam film is an Event with a capital “E”. He is one of the top Indian film directors and an auteur. He makes the films he wants to make, and doesn’t just try to chase commercial success. I’m lucky in that there is a theater five minutes from my house that shows Tamil and Telugu films. I was able to catch a matinee of Ratnam’s latest film, Kaatru Veliyidai today – the title translates to something like “Breezy Expanse.” I haven’t seen tons of Tamil films, but the ones I’ve sought out are mostly Mani Ratnam films, Roja to OK Kanmani. He is the master.
Kaatru Veliyidai is a romantic drama set around the Kargil War. Karthi plays Varun or “VC”, a cocky fighter pilot, and Aditi Rao Hydari is Dr. Leela Abraham. I have never seen Karthi in a film before, but I could tell he is a STAR and quite a good actor.
I looked him up when I got home, and he’s the younger brother of Tamil Superstar Surya, who I really enjoyed in 24.
Aditi I did not realize I’d seen before in a small role in the Hindi film Khoobsurat. She is just luminously beautiful in this film, especially the way Ratnam films her. She’s quite a good actress as well.
The film opens with VC flying his jet in a mission somewhere in Kashmir. His plane is hit and he is forced to parachute, leading to his capture by the Pakistanis. The film is a series of flashbacks from his time in prison to how he meets Leela and falls in love. He gets in a car accident, and she tends to his injuries on her first day as a doctor in the general hospital in Kashmir. There are some amazing feats of cinematography in these hospital sequences as VC goes in and out of consciousness and we see Dr. Leela reflected in his dilated eye. He sneaks out of the hospital once he awakes, and Leela doesn’t meet him again until the Air Force ball, which is gorgeous tango dance sequence. VC is so cocky in his attitude — his whole demeanor made me think of the film Top Gun. He’s shocked when Leela stands him up to his invitation for a flight over the Himalayas.
At first their relationship seems to follow a familiar path, but VC’s cockiness is also an arrogance and self absorption. The relationship has some dark tones to it. VC can be cruel and thoughtless. Leela wonders why she keeps going back to VC again and again. One scene struck me particularly when he gets her back and proclaims to his buddies in front of her, “I told you I’d bring her back. She’s MY girl! You owe me a whisky!” Was it all for a bet? Or can he really not live without her? They have such a volatile passionate relationship, it’s really an open question if they should be together. It reminded me in some ways of Rani and Abishek in Yuva.
Just at the moment that I was worried that Leela was turning into a dishrag at a critical juncture, she takes her life in her own hands. And while there is one of those key “confrontation with the girl’s parents” scenes, it’s key that while they are NOT pleased with Mr. Varun Chakrapani, they don’t scream and yell. It’s Leela who asks him to leave. She is an adult, and she makes her own decision as to the direction of her life. Mani Ratnam writes such great roles for women. Both of these characters in this romance are wonderfully complex, but especially Kartihi’s VC character.
As we flash back to the prison scenes, his goal is to escape and to get back to Leela to prove he is a better man. That leads to some gripping action scenes in the second half of the film.
I don’t think this is Mani Ratnam’s greatest film, but he truly excels at complex relationship films. I left thinking about Roja, and Dil Se. This is not a film about terrorism, but it does return to the theme of Kashmir.
The score is by A. R. Rahman and has some stand out songs — Rahman saves his best for Tamil cinema, and his very best for Mani Ratnam. Ratnam has a really clever way to include the most commercial song, Azhagiye.
VC sends Leela a videotape (VHS! It’s 1999!) with a Marry Me song filmed with his air force buddies. It’s sounds like the a cappella groups like Penn Masala. It reminded me of all those amateur Youtube videos of soldiers or sailors lip syncing and dancing. Brilliant!
There’s a family wedding setting for another great song, Saarattu Vandiyila. That shot with the red powder! Breathtakingly beautiful!
The ending left me satisfied, but yet wishing there’d been a little more. I do like to see my rogue heroes grovel quite a bit to earn their HEA. I’ll definitely be seeking out more films with both of the stars, especially Karthi. Dear Reader, if you have any to recommend I watch first, let me know in the comments.
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