"Jo darr gaya, Samjho marr gaya -- If you're afraid, you're as good as dead." - Gabbar Singh (Sholay)
For this edition of ma blog, I'm a do a review on an Indian film with memorable actaz that is eternal throughout time & fo'eva....and Indians believe that this thang's the all that of Bollywood they say.......& people dig it with it's name : "SHOLAY".
Last Friday I borrowed Sholay in VCD format (& they were supposedly original; 'tulen dan ori') from Shounak. Saw the first 2 vcds during the early hours of Saturday 21st January 2006 (what a way to coincide it with my birthday) and saw the remaining vcd the coming morning around 11am. Now, before I move on, it's best that I present a synopsis of what Sholay is all about, straight as stated from the back cover of the VCDs casing:
"Considered to be one of the greatest classics of Indian cinema, SHOLAY had the longest thetrical run when first released in 1975. SHOLAY tells the story of Jai (Amitabh Bachan) and Veeru (Dharmendra), two small time crooks called in by Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) to fight the tyranny of Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). Thakur Baldev Singh is one of the unfortunate victims who lost his entire family to Gabbar Singh’s violence. SHOLAY features excellent performance by Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachan, Dharmendra, Amjad Khan, Hema Malini, and Bhaduri under the direction of Ramesh Sippy."
According to both Shoun and Harvin, Gabbar Singh is one of the biggest baddies ever in a Bollywood movie. Harvin said that before, there wasn't any villain like Gabbar. Gabbar eleveated the status of a villain to a 'super-villain' in Indian films. Shoun said that many of Gabbar's dialogue are some of the famous quotes in Bollywood industry, up 'till now. The pic above depicts the scene of one of Gabbar's famous line: "Kitne aadmi the? ("How many men were there?")". You gotta see him to believe him.
Allright lah, I'm taking up too, too much space here. For those who neva seen this film before, and if you don't mind watching Hindi movies (haha,... I know Afzal won't), then this movie is a treat to watch when ya got nothing to do for 3 hours during the weekend. Keep in mind that the film came out in 1975, so that when you watch it, you can appreciate the film more with all it's acting, directing and action. Peace.
And to add to that, here's the statement form the 'web-encyclopedia' Wikipedia:
"One of the biggest hits in history of Bollywood, Sholay (Flames), released in 1975, was recognized as the Best Film of 50 years at the 50th Filmfare awards. It is also the highest grossing movie of all time [1] in India
Like all typical Bollywood films, it's duration is about 3 hours. And of course, throughout the movie, there'll be like 6 scenes of singing and dancing (typical Bollywood). The movie is basically set on the plot of Thakur Singh's (the man in da right pic) quest for revenge againts Gabbar Singh, a big time gangster with a reward prize of 50 000 rupees for whoever could capture him dead/alive. The movie begins with a policeman arriving at a town called Ramgad, where he's due to meet up with Thakur. Thakur, who was a retired but respected police officer, told the policeman to get him Veeru and Jai, to help him hunt down Gabbar Singh.
Thakur went on saying how he met Veeru and Jai, where the movie went into flashback mode. The scene was then set on a train, where Thakur was keeping the two crooks captive, when suddenly some bandits riding horses ambushed the train. Without much choice, Thakur set the two heroes free (by shooting at their handcuffs, wtf) then they all fought againts the bandits. It was during this point that Thakur knew they were the right men for the job. He said that they may be criminals, but they are good men with dignity and a sense of conscience for helping people (Thakur got shot among the gunfight, and Jai decided that he and Veeru help sent him to a hospital, before escaping from jail). This train scene with all the gunfight is among the memorable action scene in the entire movie.
Moving on to two of the protagonists of the film, Jai & Veeru, Harvin was saying these duo was comparable to Will Smith and Martin Lawrence from the Bad Boys films.
These two guys are best of friends, comparable to being tight-knit brothers. They share their happiness and their problems together, and there's a very strong camaraderie b'ween them throughout the movie. Veeru is the crazier of the two, he's quite outspoken, he's more joyful, brash, hell, he's even a drunk. Jai on the other hand is more reserved, but wiser and smarter. Jai always flipped a coin whenever he and Veeru can't think on which thing to do right, and it's always either head or tails (but this is one of the twist in the film, Jai's coin).
Compared to other Bollywood films, this movie does not empashized much on romance (unlike Bollywood movies of nowadays and after the Sholay period), but there's still elments of it. As soon as they arrived at Ramgad, Veeru's fall head over heels with Basanti, a big-time chatterbox girl who drives a 'kereta kuda' for them guys. Jai would later fall for Radha, a quiet and depressed girl who is Thakur's widowed daughter in law (who I believe is acted by Amitabh Bachan's real life wife, I'm not sure, perhaps Shoun or Harvin can clarify this).
On the other hand, I noticed that in this movie, there are not many cars or vehicles around (well, hardly any). The only vehicle you can see is a police jeep, that's the closest thing resembling a car in the movie. Instead, the people in Sholay ride horses, making the film look like more of an old western/cowboy flick, with all the typical western drama, action & gunfight shooting. The film also has, in my opinion, a stylish way of being shot. The director really uses the environments and surroundings to a great extent, making most of the places where the action takes place feels like you're in it even though you're watching it. The music that accompanies some scenes (not the music from the singing & dancing) are also well matched with the theme of the situations. For instance, both Thakur and Gabbar got a specific theme that accompanies them, as well as for both Veeru and Jai. Furthermore, the film had the unusual way of shooting the violent scenes. When about to witness the violent scenes, they instead were not being shown, but viewers will know what the situation that would indefinitely happen next (example, there's this part when Gabbar's men killed most of Thakur's family, except for his grandson, later Gabbar approaches the grandson, pointing out his shotgun at the little boy, then the gunshot.....but then the scene swiftly changes to a train just arriving at station and out comes Thakur Singh. The other one is during the scene when Thakur got his hands chopped off).
Sholay also got excellent acting, by all the actors/characters in the movie (yes, even the side characters). Everybody played to their part really well, and gelled perfectly with the characters they played. One of my favourite part in the movie involves when Jai and Veeru purposely went in jail for a bet, and they met up with this goofy and clumsy prison warden.
The guy is a hybrid cross between Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin. Wears and walk as if he's Hitler, but act, talk and do stuff like Chaplin. And he's got the habit of saying that he's a warden from the British colonizaton times.
Anyway, I really like his part in the film. His scenes in the film is just about one of the rare comic reliefs that you could get in the film, and it's really funny. Absolutely loved it, especially when the warden said that he got an undercover prisoner spy working for him, and the funny part is when Veeru and Jai tricked and outsmarted both the spy and the warden with hilarious consequences. Hell, even the prison warden got his own theme, a goofy parody of "For he's a jolly good fellow" (haha).
Now, before watching the movie, I never seen Sholay before. In fact, the way I got to know about Sholay (and hence borrowing the VCDs from Shoun) is quite unusual, to say the least. It was last Thursday, during triple D class at Auditorium 1. Sunita was lecturing, the class seemed quiet and lifeless.....and then Shoun was talking to Harvinder (in Hindi of course) and I could saw them smiling away. Took a glanced at them, trying to understand what's the conversation was all about, and it seemed that Shawn was re-enacting a scene from Sholay, where he's mimicking Gabbar Singh's scene of chopping the hands of Thakur Singh, instead that he's imagining himself chopping off Sunita's tits (no comment). Soon after explaining about it, Shoun & Harvin asked me whether I've seen it, I told them no. Then they started saying that Sholay is one of the most memorable, best and biggest hit of Bollywood films ever, and that any one who follows the Bollywood film industry would surely have seen it before. Shoun was saying that it got superb acting and famous dialogues, and Harvin went on saying that the movie was 'evergreen & eternal'. So it made interested on seeing the movie, and I can't remember whether I asked Shoun if I could borowed it or whether he suggested that he would lent it to me. Anyway, let's move on to the review....
Like all typical Bollywood films, it's duration is about 3 hours. And of course, throughout the movie, there'll be like 6 scenes of singing and dancing (typical Bollywood). The movie is basically set on the plot of Thakur Singh's (the man in da right pic) quest for revenge againts Gabbar Singh, a big time gangster with a reward prize of 50 000 rupees for whoever could capture him dead/alive. The movie begins with a policeman arriving at a town called Ramgad, where he's due to meet up with Thakur. Thakur, who was a retired but respected police officer, told the policeman to get him Veeru and Jai, to help him hunt down Gabbar Singh.
Thakur went on saying how he met Veeru and Jai, where the movie went into flashback mode. The scene was then set on a train, where Thakur was keeping the two crooks captive, when suddenly some bandits riding horses ambushed the train. Without much choice, Thakur set the two heroes free (by shooting at their handcuffs, wtf) then they all fought againts the bandits. It was during this point that Thakur knew they were the right men for the job. He said that they may be criminals, but they are good men with dignity and a sense of conscience for helping people (Thakur got shot among the gunfight, and Jai decided that he and Veeru help sent him to a hospital, before escaping from jail). This train scene with all the gunfight is among the memorable action scene in the entire movie.Moving on to two of the protagonists of the film, Jai & Veeru, Harvin was saying these duo was comparable to Will Smith and Martin Lawrence from the Bad Boys films.
These two guys are best of friends, comparable to being tight-knit brothers. They share their happiness and their problems together, and there's a very strong camaraderie b'ween them throughout the movie. Veeru is the crazier of the two, he's quite outspoken, he's more joyful, brash, hell, he's even a drunk. Jai on the other hand is more reserved, but wiser and smarter. Jai always flipped a coin whenever he and Veeru can't think on which thing to do right, and it's always either head or tails (but this is one of the twist in the film, Jai's coin).Compared to other Bollywood films, this movie does not empashized much on romance (unlike Bollywood movies of nowadays and after the Sholay period), but there's still elments of it. As soon as they arrived at Ramgad, Veeru's fall head over heels with Basanti, a big-time chatterbox girl who drives a 'kereta kuda' for them guys. Jai would later fall for Radha, a quiet and depressed girl who is Thakur's widowed daughter in law (who I believe is acted by Amitabh Bachan's real life wife, I'm not sure, perhaps Shoun or Harvin can clarify this).
On the other hand, I noticed that in this movie, there are not many cars or vehicles around (well, hardly any). The only vehicle you can see is a police jeep, that's the closest thing resembling a car in the movie. Instead, the people in Sholay ride horses, making the film look like more of an old western/cowboy flick, with all the typical western drama, action & gunfight shooting. The film also has, in my opinion, a stylish way of being shot. The director really uses the environments and surroundings to a great extent, making most of the places where the action takes place feels like you're in it even though you're watching it. The music that accompanies some scenes (not the music from the singing & dancing) are also well matched with the theme of the situations. For instance, both Thakur and Gabbar got a specific theme that accompanies them, as well as for both Veeru and Jai. Furthermore, the film had the unusual way of shooting the violent scenes. When about to witness the violent scenes, they instead were not being shown, but viewers will know what the situation that would indefinitely happen next (example, there's this part when Gabbar's men killed most of Thakur's family, except for his grandson, later Gabbar approaches the grandson, pointing out his shotgun at the little boy, then the gunshot.....but then the scene swiftly changes to a train just arriving at station and out comes Thakur Singh. The other one is during the scene when Thakur got his hands chopped off).
Sholay also got excellent acting, by all the actors/characters in the movie (yes, even the side characters). Everybody played to their part really well, and gelled perfectly with the characters they played. One of my favourite part in the movie involves when Jai and Veeru purposely went in jail for a bet, and they met up with this goofy and clumsy prison warden.
The guy is a hybrid cross between Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin. Wears and walk as if he's Hitler, but act, talk and do stuff like Chaplin. And he's got the habit of saying that he's a warden from the British colonizaton times.
Anyway, I really like his part in the film. His scenes in the film is just about one of the rare comic reliefs that you could get in the film, and it's really funny. Absolutely loved it, especially when the warden said that he got an undercover prisoner spy working for him, and the funny part is when Veeru and Jai tricked and outsmarted both the spy and the warden with hilarious consequences. Hell, even the prison warden got his own theme, a goofy parody of "For he's a jolly good fellow" (haha).However, according to all the pundits that made their reviews on Sholay throughout the Net, it was Amjad Khan who stole the spotlight, with his potrayal of Gabbar Singh. His introduction itself begins with the camera just focussing on his legs walking up boulders of rocks, condemning 3 of his foot soldiers for failing to extort goods from the village of Ramgad ('cause Jai and Veeru scared them away), before we then see his full appeareance that highlighted his evil, tempestuos, and sadistic presence. As I stated before, stylish shooting from the film.
According to both Shoun and Harvin, Gabbar Singh is one of the biggest baddies ever in a Bollywood movie. Harvin said that before, there wasn't any villain like Gabbar. Gabbar eleveated the status of a villain to a 'super-villain' in Indian films. Shoun said that many of Gabbar's dialogue are some of the famous quotes in Bollywood industry, up 'till now. The pic above depicts the scene of one of Gabbar's famous line: "Kitne aadmi the? ("How many men were there?")". You gotta see him to believe him.Allright lah, I'm taking up too, too much space here. For those who neva seen this film before, and if you don't mind watching Hindi movies (haha,... I know Afzal won't), then this movie is a treat to watch when ya got nothing to do for 3 hours during the weekend. Keep in mind that the film came out in 1975, so that when you watch it, you can appreciate the film more with all it's acting, directing and action. Peace.
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