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A Horror-filled week in Princeton

After having spent almost a week in Princeton watching a few Hindi movies, yours truly has returned with news from Bollywood: Mani Shankar is lame.

I watched the films Jani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani, Rudraksh and 16 December in rapid succession. The latter two were directed by animation "wizard" Mani Shankar. Here's my chaar aaney:

Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani
What the FUCK were they thinking?! That they could just club the movie Jani Dushman from the 70s with another 70s movie Nagin and make it a turn of the (20th) century thriller??? True, this movie DID have a huge star cast, just like its progenitors from the 70s. True, they were as magaaan or in some cases more magaan-er than the players in the original two films, but it also had that nauseating bitch Manisha Koirala in an irritating role. The story (or whatever passes for one) is as follows:

The first hour or so of the movie is filmed in INTRODUCTION MODE. The INTRODUCTION MODE usually lasts five minutes in Hindi films, and this is where the characters have inane conversations just to let the audience know who is who, even though they are stating stuff that is clearly obvious to themselves and to all the characters present. A typical inane conversation would consist of lines like, "Arrey, Rajesh, tum to isiliye gussa ho rahey ho ki tum PILOT ho aur tumhein abhi bhi koi LADKI mili nahin, ha ha ha!" From this line, the audience learns that Rajesh is a pilot and he is also a bachelor. Another example would be, "(Giggle giggle) Sunil, tum jaisa flirt maine aaj tak nahin dekha. College ke dinon se hi isiliye Aarti tumse door bhagti thi. Tum to jaante hi ho ki Aarti ke daddy fauj mein hain!" The WORST kind of INTRODUCTION happens when a character who has obviously known another character for a longass time suddenly starts a sentence with "Tum to jaante hi ho..." and then relates a fact that should definitely be well-known to both the sayer and the sayee and definitely WOULD NOT need any repetition, especially after 15 years of familiarity with said fact.

Anyway, the first hour of this movie is spent in INTRODUCTION MODE. This begins at Rajat Bedi's wedding to some random arbit girl, and all his college friends come on stage one by one to deliver some bland inane lines just so that they can introduce each other in the lamest way possible (example: Aaftab Shivdasani's character plays a dickless wonder who can't for the life of him do anything to protect either himself or the woman he loves, who is for some bizzare reason hanging out with Aditya Pancholi - oh wait, it was a majboori, because AP pays for her mom's operation or something like that - anyway, Shivdasani confides in one of the other girls - maybe it was that ugly bitch Rambha, and his introductory line consists of Rambha saying something obvious like "Offfo, tum kitne saalon se usse pyaar karte ho, ab bata hi do na use!")
Character after horrible character is introduced this way. Immediately after which they persuade bride and groom to leave the reception and go have sex. What the fuck?! "Jaao, jaao, tum log suhaag raat manaao!" What the fuck is this?! Friends getting together so that they can convince two other friends to have sex? Why should anyone be telling the bride and groom when to have sex? Anyway, they leave the reception, go upto their room (which for some reason is in the same skyscraper that houses the reception on the ground floor) and almost immediately the dulhan turns into a daayan - well, actually a skeleton. Oh wait, it wasn't even a skeleton. It was the most horrible transformation I have ever seen. First the bride's face is obscured by a rotten cut-paste of some skull-like travesty, then suddenly her whole body is replaced by a skeleton-like monstrosity made of thermocol. This monstrosity starts to chase Rajat Bedi around the moon until finally he falls out the window. Saala aisa chootiya husband rahega to skeleton thermocol ka nahin hoga to aur kya hoga.

Of course, it turns out that this woman was nothing but Manisha Koirala in another form. She is apparently a ghost. She escapes to her hideout, and then turns to the camera and starts talking (apparently to no one) and thus begins her fucking INTRO MODE: she used to be in the same class in college as these other fuckers, and both Rajat Bedi and Siddharth (the song Chupana bhi nahin aata was picturized on this guy in Baazigar) try to rape her (yuck) but are (un)fortunately stopped by her boyfriend, an alumnus of the college, Sunny Deol. He complains to the principal, who is a Christian priest played by Raj Babbar (Magaaan yinsaaan Babbar Sher)... anyway, they are forced to beg Manisha Koirala for forgiveness. She doesn't want to, but then her friends come up with awesome reasons - "Come on, I know they tried to rape you, but they are saying sorry!" and she accepts their apologies. Then one night it rains and she is standing under a Banyan tree (she sleepwalks to this same tree the night before, and this  was definitely lifted from Dracula) and discovers this other choot - another spanner in the works - the weird-eyed Arman Kohli (who for some reason is credited as Munish Kohli) who claims to be an ichchadhaari naag who - hold your breath, friends - was her lover in her previous janam. Now we go in for a flashback within a flashback - both snakes assume human form (in Manisha's case, you wish that it wouldn't) and are dancing around (kind of reminds me of that song from the Rambo-ripoff movie starring Jeetendra and Madhavi - Qaidi. The song was Chandni raat yeh sanam, except they aren't ichchadhaari naags in the film, they are watching a couple of snakes supposedly having sex on a full-moon night) while they are dancing, the ground caves in under Manisha's feet (tells you what a fatass she is) and apparently a rishi (Amrish Puri in a special appearance) has made that particular hole in the ground his home for about 14 years so that he could gain Shiva's favour (and he claims that Shiva was going to appear to him later that night - sure, sure, dream on, bitch) and since they bhanged his tapasya, he's obviously really mad and curses them - she is to die as soon as the sun sets. But they beg and plead, so he says, alright fine, you will remember everything in your next janam when you see your husband again.

The complication is - she is already engaged to Sunny Deol (who is conveniently away on business) - but since when has that ever stood in the way of a shitty script that doesn't worry about morals?! In the meantime, there's a party of some sort at Akshay Kumar's farmhouse, but Manisha refuses to go. Both Siddharth and Rajat Bedi trick her on the phone (and only AFTER about half an hour do you find out - from Rambha in INTRO MODE - "Tumhein yaad hai kaise Rajesh ne pichle Annual Day par hum sab logon ki mimicry ki thi?!") and ask her to show up an hour before the others. For some reason, the meeting point happens to be this abandoned factory/cave thing. Manisha gets raped in one of fakest rape scenes I have ever seen. I always wonder how the hell it is rape if it happens with no one taking any clothes off. Manisha obviously commits suicide but not before she claims that she was tricked by all her friends, and points them out to her ichchadhaari naag boyfriend from her pichle janam. And he goes ballistic, but manages to do jack shit that night except kill Siddharth (excess baggage anyway).

Here, the Manisha-flashback ends, and it turns out that she wasn't narrating this flashback to no one in particular, she was facing her ichchadhaari asshole. The rest of the movie deals with how they get together, a ghost and an asshole, and kill their friends (most of them guilty of nothing but either being ugly or being bad actors or both)

Everyone dies, Akki is badly injured and goes into what the doctor calls a "comma", and is suddenly and randomly revived towards the end just to go try to protect the life of a randomly dickless wonder named Sonu Nigam. Akki dies, Vicky survives. Not fair.

We also learn that Raj Babbar is not only a Christian priest, but also is a professor of parapsychology (hahah just like Dr. Dastur in Hindustaan Ki Kasam!) and believes in all other religions as well - the proof being the four pictures of symbols from four major Indian religions including Christianity on his walls - and he makes the victims these multi-purpose all-religion amulets (saves you from ghosts of all religions! This amazing offer for only $14.95 [$6.95 S+H])

At one point in the movie, Arman Kohli's character says, "Tumhein maloom hai ki main kisi nirdosh ki jaan nahin le sakta", referring to Sunny Deol's character, who reappears towards the end of the movie to save his brother [Oh yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. His younger brother is the ball-less wonder Sonu Nigam, who calls his brother up from a phone booth or something - maybe it was from his own house - and says, "Bhaiyya, main Vivek bol raha hoon... main... main... aapka Vivek, aapka Vicky!" - WHAT? Since when does Vivek become Vicky? Fuck you all]

Excuse me, Mr. Arman Kohli's ichchadhaari naag asshole character, what the FUCK do you mean, you can't kill nirdosh log? Butt-monkey, you have been doing that for most of the fucking movie!!!

How ichchadhaari is the naag? It is so fucking ichchadhaari that it can morph itself into Arman Kohli in a car, Arman Kohli on a bike, etc. [Accessories not sold separately, they come with the action figure!] - in one scene, when he explodes, the liquid droplets come together to reform Arman Kohli on a bike, just like in T2 (and that wasn't the only scene copied from T2) BUT WAIT! If the car was also part of ichchadhaari Kohli, how come Aditya Pancholi (or was it Akki) was able to escape in the same car without getting his ass kicked?! Keep it straight, you choots!

The other scene copied from T2: Sunny Deol, in an attempt to save his decidedly pansoid brother Vicky, is impaled through the back with a long rod and dies. But Babbar Sher, meditating on some pantheistic God elsewhere, manages to send over this weird oblong cuboid of light [this refers to the "Auxillary Battery" that revives Arnie in T2] and Sunny wakes up, and slowly reaches behind him to pull out the rod, just like Arnie did.

The movie has a sad ending. Everyone, including Akki (I cried) dies. Good news: Sunny lives. Bad news: that dickless choot Sonu Nigam survives. If anything, I would have thought he wasn't nirdosh, because of a horrible Zee TV program called Sa Re Gaana.

The editing was as horrible as the plotline and characters and songs. Raza Muraad, Johnny Lever and Jaspal Bhatti all appear for a sum total of one scene each. In Johnny Lever's case, I am not complaining. I just don't understand what the use is of having people like Raza Muraad in the movie if you are going to show him in just one fucking scene, saying cliched stuff like "Main tumhari shaadi mere dost ke bete Vicky se karne wala hoon kyonki main tumhein itni jaldi vidwa hote nahin dekh sakta! Aaj se tumhara college jaana band!" Jaspal Bhatti's appearance was not only useless, it was during a really unnecessary "boxing" sequence with Principal Babbar Sher presiding.


Rudraksh

The first Mani Shankar movie I have seen, I think. The thing that pissed me off MOST about his "animation" is that he fucks up his own work with those stupid cloud-blurs behind every word in the credits. Those things are irritating and they only remind you of poorly animated cheap flicks, and are not very futuristic at all. This movie is useless and someone should remove all traces of the fact that it ever existed. The only good thing about this movie is that I was actually interested in visiting Sri Lanka. I guess a couple more good things: whoever the vamp was, she didn't look half as bad when she was back in Sri Lanka with that little dot on her forehead. The other thing was that it got me thinking about the Ramayana and about Rakshasas - maybe the Ramayana is kind of a story about how Hinduism got rid of other earlier religions in the south? Just call them devil-worshippers, that's sure to scare people away from those religions. The Christians very successfully did this a couple thousand years later, right. Alright, fine, so Ravana was supposed to be a great Shiva devotee and all that. There is still something to be said about how the dark-skinned Ravana is a Rakshasa while those people from Ayodhya are supposed to be the good ones. Just a conspiracy theory, that's all. Don't take it too seriously. Besides, I don't think the makers of this movie took that stuff too seriously.

The story begins in Sri Lanka where a group of archaeologists are apparently in the process of unearthing Ravana's treasures and stuff in Yala. I checked, there doesn't seem to be anything in Yala West National Park about Ravana. At best, he is supposed to have lived in Trincomallee, which is quite far away from Yala, maybe? Anyway, the scene there is almost like The Valley of The Dead, with gigantic statues in the background. Sunil Shetty is supposed to be a Bihari contractor who while working there also regularly steals artifacts so he can sell them elsewhere. Ravana's Rudraksha falls into his hands and he is hypnotized by its power, not unlike The One Ring when it falls into Gollum's hands. Then a huge statue of some weird being's skull is unearthed, and everything goes haywire. Sunil Shetty starts acting up and realizes the power of some random shloka invented by Rakshasas: Rak tadheem tadheem tadheem ree! And he uses it to his benefit, apparently inciting riots everywhere he goes - he is to blame, apparently, for the 1993 riots in Bombay, where an innocent bystander Raj Zutshi is turned into a blubbering zombie by the utterance of this same shloka which he keeps repeating ever since, while at the mental asylum (sort of remniscent of Renfield's character in Dracula).

In the meantime, more bullshit in the form of the heroine, who is apparently a student at "University of California" (which city? which subject? I guess she was a film student or something) and is in India (with a token couple of white girls called Suzy and Sherrie or something) looking for paranormal phenomena and the people who cause them, and proving most of them fake (they show a useless example of her phod-ing the bhanda of some random sadhu maharishi) - her classmates go around with these supposedly sophisticated instruments which look like tricorders from Star Trek: TNG, and a couple of laptops that have either a wav editor window open, showing a random wave file, or some sort of simulation of an MRI output. Whenever she barks something about the subject's status, the girls use jargon to explain the situation. EM field, alpha waves and whatnaught. The special effects were poor, even though it looked like Mani Shankar tried hard. It was almost as if he made this movie just so he could sell his special effects, not unlike how Mahesh Bhatt apparently ripped off the storyline from Ghost to make the superflop Pyaar Ka Saaya just so he could sell the soundtrack.

Anyway, the heroine comes across one genuine healer: Sanjay Dutt. From all that he can do, he looks like a Raymond's Complete Man, because he heals people in the mornings, teaches karate (there's ONE line of what is supposed to be Japanese, beginning with Arrigato) and then at night he is a bouncer at a local club. Wow, is there something this man can NOT do? Apparently he can't find a barber, because his hair is almost as long as Sunil Shetty's and almost in dreadlocks like the latter's. Slowly and painfully these two uncover the secret behind Bhuria the Bihari's Rakshas Rudraksha. Along the way, there are a few more unnecessary characters that are introduced: up in the Himalayas, Sanjay Dutt's father, a sadhu maharishi who gets killed almost as immediately as he is introduced. It was Kabir Bedi, and I really don't understand why they needed to bring back ol' Santocan in the first place, if all they wanted to do was off him in five minutes and then bring him back for a 1 minute scene towards the end where he acts as Obi Wan to the Luke in Sanjay Dutt.

I don't know how I managed to sit through the entire length of the film, right upto the part when Sanjay Dutt finally manages to trick Sunil Shetty and the latter dies. Once again, the animation was as shitty as the movie Spawn. This is the movie where they tried desperately to show a really scary underworld with a really gigantic Satanic God but failed desperately. At least it had John Leguiziamo ("Oooh! Twins!", my favourite line from the film)


16 December

Arrey, arrey, don't throw them away! Bring me those tricorders once the chicks from Rudraksh are done with them. We need it for the next movie. This one is more about espionage and counter-espionage than exposing false prophets. Hence began 16 December, the next film. Another Mani Shankar movie, this one more decent than the latter. At least it had a decent storyline, believable or not. On this day in 1971, the Pakistani forces "surrendered" to the Indian forces in Bangladesh. Thirty years later, one pissed-off Pakistani is a master of disguise (an extra in the movie says something like "Lekin aap to bhes badalne mein maahir hain") - I would rather dub him master of the same set of clothes - he always looks like a schoolteacher - even if he is wearing his "tramp/hobo" clothes, even if he has those dreadlocks. We are talking about Gullu Grover. He has apparently been plotting his revenge by gathering a group of covert operatives directly related to Afghani and Pakistani terrorists or some shit like that.

Some Indian politicians in Delhi apparently are helping them by sending a shitload of money each day secretly into a numbered Swiss account. What is this money for, you ask? It is sort of like The Peacemaker - the terrorists are buying a nuclear weapon. Where are they buying a nuclear weapon from, you ask? The former Soviet Union's stocks, of course. How? Some sort of EBAY SITE!!!

How do we find this out? Remember the character Mouse from the movie The Core? ("I only speak one language: 100010101!") This movie stars some dumbass preteen kid (who always has the same yo-cool look that Udit Narayan's son had when he was "solving" Rubik's Cube off camera with his hands in Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai - "Toomara beyta to bout intellegent hye!") who knows a lot about hacking! In fact, he can just run some stupid shitty windows program that can easily hack not only into Indian Govt websites (believable) but also Swiss Banks! Still, I don't want to give them too much shit about this, after all Hollywood has the same crap in its movies (where passwords are still actual words from the dictionary - unless they are *shudder* E=MC2 like in Mercury Rising - and they don't show up as *'s when you key them in!)

Milind Soman is the lead character. Now this is where I draw the line. They could have let Sushant lead the group, ya know. The chick wasn't bad looking, but Milind Soman... arrrgh. Aise chakke ko kaheko yeh log uthake leke aate hain. Danny Dengzongpa gets top billing! Wow. I guess it was worth waiting for the last scene: Gullu Grover is caught, and drones on about how the jihad is not yet finished, it will continue... and Danny turns around, faces the camera, and says, "Give me a BREAK!"

All in all, it wasn't too bad (maybe I am contrasting it with the two horror shows I witnessed previously) except for the songs and the Milind Soman. And WHAT THE FUCK IS IT WITH MANI SHANKAR AND HIS STUPID FUCKING FONT WITH THE CLOUDS BEHIND IT?! Two movies with the same stupid font. It's not even cool. Stop it!

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