There are lots of Hollywood ’’angel movies’’, all of them so banal that I don’t even remember their titles. In a way, Kal Ho Naa Ho is the same thing from Bollywood.
Frankly, I didn’t like the story much, SRK looks far too good to be believably sick to death, and why is Preity Zinta ugly, just because she wears specs and doesn’t dress up like an idiot?
What I did like was the songs: This ’’Pretty Woman’’-adaptation combines genially Western and Indian music and the Lagaan song was sheer fun.
So, as a whole, this movie is not a great one but somewhat nice and entertaining. It even made it into German movie theaters, which prompted the following little article in Germany’s renowned news magazine ’’Der Spiegel’’ (The Mirror), which I have roughly translated (not (!) my words!):
’’?Indian Love Story? could be the title of hundreds of mawkish Bollywood movies from the Indian capital of sob stuff, Mumbai. The melodramatic glamour blockbuster ?Kal Ho Naa Ho? is the first Indian large-scale production (with the compulsory three-hour length) which was completely shot in New York ? not to conquer the world market but to show America to the public at home, so that they don?t have to watch Hollywood movies.
Here the public meets ? in the surroundings of an Indian extended family that runs a small restaurant in Brooklyn ? a New York that is populated almost exclusively by Indians, but they are Indians who leave no opportunity to gang together for frenetic dance and song numbers ? with a super-kitsch potential that melts even ice-cold sceptics.’’
Any comments on that?