Om Shanti Om – Preview
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Credit must be given to Farah Khan for going with the nostalgia evoking title, “Om Shanti Om” for her second directorial venture. The first thing that comes to mind upon hearing that title is an image of Rishi Kapoor dancing on a giant spinning record trying not to trip on his wide bell bottom pants in Shubhash Ghai’s “Karz”. That classic tale of reincarnation and a killer in the form of Simi Garewal has been burned into the collective memory of any Indian who grew up during that time.
Going for the built in intrinsic nostalgic value of the title, Farah Khan has chosen a reincarnation theme for her second film. The story centers on an artist who grows up in the seventies (perhaps watching Karz), meets the love of his life and shortly thereafter suffers an untimely demise. He is immediately reincarnated and the story flash-forwards to the present day. Haunted by the memories of his past life and love, he attempts to not only solve the mystery of his death, but also reunite with the love of his past life. The movie is apparently “inspired” by the Hollywood movie, “Chances Are” wherein a man is reincarnated and immediately attempts to find the wife from his previous life. The problem is that she is now much older than him and does not believe that he is the reincarnation of the man she once loved.
The music for the film was to have been composed by A.R. Rahman, but he wanted 33 percent of the music rights/profits, so T-Series balked and ended their discussions with him. Instead, the music baton was handed to maestros Vishal-Shekhar (Dus, Honeymoon Private LTD, Bluffmaster). The addition of these two-music directors will be a bonus as it adds to the anticipation of this follow-up project to Main Hoon Na (Farah Khan’s directorial debut). One does wonder, why Farah did not go with Anu Malik this time, as his soundtrack to Main Hoon Na was a blockbuster. Still, we are guaranteed a fresh sounding soundtrack with Vishal-Shekhar and hopefully no reincarnated music. The master poet Gulzar will write lyrics.
Special mention must be made that Farah’s husband Shirish Kunder (director of Jaan E Mann) will be handling the editing on this movie as he did on Main Hoon Na. Also, apparently Skakira, who is a big fan of SRK and is acquainted with Farah as a choreographer, is in talks to make an appearance.
The movie features Shah Rukh Khan as the lead and introduces supermodel Deepika Padukone as the main love interest. The supporting cast includes Arjun Rampal (Don) and Shreyas Talpade (Iqbal, Dor). Both SRK and Deepika Padukone are getting rave reviews for their performances in the dailies. The actor to watch out for though, is the talented Shreyas Talpade.
One can expect that the movie will be in the same tone as Main Hoon Na, and will be a light hearted romp with excellent music. Only time will tell whether this reincarnated movie will please the movie going audience. With the talent involved, expectations are running high that this movie won’t be a reincarnated bomb, but rather a reincarnated hit ala Main Hoon Na.
actually add video wala link is not working 
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9 Comments
Interesting bit of info on the film Achilles. Where is this from?
I am incidentally a great fan of re-incarnation movies. My favorite is Kudrat. Karz is very good too but more masala. And on pure aesthetic grounds MAdhumati cannot be beaten.
KUDRAT is one of my faves too Satyam! The movie is just amazing, I quiet like Ghai’s KARZ and MADHUMATI as well as MEHBOOBA and even KARAN ARJUN!
Satyam: Its from Planetbollywood.com. Here is the link:
http://www.planetbollywood.com.....1907042631
This one smells like another SRK success at BO. A pure commercial venture to follow up the offbeat CDI … The debut of the ravishing Deepika makes it more anticipated & awaited
Reincarnation theme is a risky proposition even if its made by Farah Khan and stars SRK.Karz is a personal favorite and one of Ghai’s best.Loved Kudrat for the vintage RD score.
I do agree with Rajen. Reincarnation is certainly a risky proposition and even in the old days it was only the exception that worked.
Having said that if a film is kept light enough these days with the right kind of music and gags it is just about impossible for a film to flop. But this film could have a Don like graph if not handled just the right way. We keep forgetting that MHN was a success but even though it was liked more than VZ it didn’t outgross VZ. the latter had the initial advantage but then fell far more than MHN. MHN was more stable but not enough to overtake VZ. So when people talk about Farah Khan sure this sounds like a hit but Farah hardly delivered a super-blockbuster with MHN the way Karan Johar has in the past.
Also the bar should be higher given that this is a big SRK film. When a TRP that does not live upto expectations does 40 crores there are no brownie points for a KANK doing a little more than this. Even accepting a 50 crore gross for Don (which I don’t of course) it is hardly impressive given the TRP performance! And specially given that Don also had 4-5 crore headstart in terms of the initial. In fact the very people who claim 50 crores also claim a close to 25 crore initial, they also claim an 18 crore initial for TRP. This means that don has a 7 crore initial advantage and does only 3 crores more than TRP later on! Is this a hit?!
So OSO will have a big initial but the bar is also higher given all the success various stars have had in different genres since last year. The same goes for CDI. It’s a more lowkey film yes but it will still have a good initial.
The problem with the SRK films always is that both with the partisans and the media the definitions of success keep changing after the release of the film.
OSO will become a more different film than RDB, CDI will become an art film and so on! Therefore any and every gross can be justified!
And before anyone thinks I am being too harsh on SRK I have kept the highest bar for Abhishek every single time. For Guru it was 40-50 crores, for JBJ it is minimally 60 crores (my range is 60-70 crores). So if I’m wrong it should be fairly easy to disprove me!
I remember Chances R back in 1990. It had the sexy Cybill Shepherd, who was probably in her late 30s in this movie, and they made her age from a bride to a mom in the movie. Also, a young Robert Downey Jr was the reborn hero, with Ryan ONeal playing her suitor. So here they would need to make a 40+ SRK look 20ish and a 20 something Deepika look 40+…
“And before anyone thinks I am being too harsh on SRK I have kept the highest bar for Abhishek every single time. For Guru it was 40-50 crores, for JBJ it is minimally 60 crores (my range is 60-70 crores).” MAKES TWO OF US SATYAM!!
Also people are recognising that CDI is NOT A SMALL FILM(I REPEAT NOT A SMALL FILM). The expectations I’ve read on NG range from 20 crores FINAL GROSS(?!?!?!?!?!?!) to 35 crores MAX!!! PUHLEEESE!
I m not very sure of what the magnitude of both CDI n OSO will be … but anything less than 40 crores each will be a disturbing underperformance.
ZBZ seems to be too much over the top a movie to get to 60 crores!!!