One thing is for sure, in India, the attitude portrayed by the people is directly reflected off the latest block busters! That’s probably why bollywood, tollywood, mollywood and god knows what else, churn out such a humungous number of films each year! The world always recognises pathbreakers or people who have heralded a new era. This my review is dedicated to people / films like that who have been heralding new eras of film making in India. Note- My knowledge of hindi films is not complete, and this is a review honestly based on my experiences. If someone feels I have left out some other important contribution, pls send me a m2m.
1) Sholay- Undoubtedly the biggest blockbuster of all times and even if not, certainly the mostly remembered film from the bygone era. Jai and veeru with basanti, thakur, Gabbar singh, kaalia and ramgarh have become household names. If someone of today’s genre looks at this movie, he might not find it too flaunting, but that was the 70’s, remember. And, this film changed the entire course of hindi movies, introduced and gave the ’’Villain’’ a foothold in evey movie produced hence. However, I still feel that the recognition amitabh recieved for this movie was’nt sufficient and it was dharmendra who walked away with all kudos! Films that followed- every thakur based film right from that day to karan arjun and villain oriented films such as don, great gambler to darr.
2) Sangam- I am not a great fan of Raj Kapoor’s acting, or his rather improper handling of on screen heroines, but the fact is that he has been one of the first path breakers. This films, One of the first successful triangular love stories heralded hundreds of triangles, which is even used today( Give us a break guys), Other kapoor hits- Ram teri ganga maili, satyam shivam sundaram, mera naam joker etc., have brought India to world cinema’s attention.
3) Jo jeeta wohi sikander- This movie had a dual role to play in the genre- First, this was probably the first successful attempt at a youth based film with a message too! Everyone who watched this film walked away with a good feeling in their hearts. Also, it gave to us the real Aamir Khan, who in my opinion is much better than the rest of the khans or rather he is at the top of the list. The only tragedy which happened for this movie was Ayesha Jhulka (Who is this?).
4) Shiva- This film not only started a new genre of film making, but also got every one to sit up and notice Ram gopal Varma, who went on to become one of the most versatile and innovative directors of India (Not today, ok!) Shiva, remade from a telugu hit took the country by storm as for the first time goondaism and college politics were portrayed on screen in a real life fashion! Now, I dont remember how many films took off after this one!
5) Hum Aapke hain kaun- Let me get this straight, I can write a 50 page review on the the good and bad performances of this film, but all the same, this movie took apart the entire film industry, in fact, it affected the industry so much that some movies were just shelved and producers started off on making family movies. Seriously speaking, this is the only movie to have matched the stupendous success of Sholay. Similar films- from Dilwale dulhaniya le jaayenge to every movie after that, every director tried to target his film at the family audience.
6) Satya- Again, although we’ve mentioned Ram gopal varma earlier, this movie has rebounded back onto us in the form of every hindi movie made after this. Every movie has been made with the underworld being on and off portrayed in a lot of scenes. In fact, if we look back, the involvement of underworld with the film industry has been strictly kept hush-hush before this movie and Boom- everything is out in the open! Now, every kid on the block will talk about the mafia as if they were his aunts or uncles! Most of the credit for this should go to satya and I strictly believe that the movie should have enjoyed a greater success and thinking now, except for Manoj Bajpai (Who has become soooooo boring now), this movie has’nt been remembered as much!
Limiting the count to 6 out of 600 movies released each year, I know is pretty unfair, but all the same, there have been scores of great movies, such as Gadar, Lagaan, and a ton more and even off beat films such as Golmaal, Kamasutra (!), etc, which also created little groups of similar films around them
Now, not forgetting the other end of films, we have had huge multi starrers made into head ache films! I still dont understand why Kaho naa pyaar hai ran for so long! k3g got what it deserved, Agnivarsha (Yikes!!), ashoka and other such much hyped films have just been made to probably waste money!
Phew- I am done, god save who ever has read all this!!
You would be thinking, it would have been better to watch Aks (leaping lizards!!) rather than read all this!- Hey, I am honest here ok..