bali4life Reviews

Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006)

A fun bollywood movie but overrated

[6/10 · 13 December 2006]

I give it a 6.5/10 because the movie is one of the best bollywood movies to come out for a long time - why? - Because it has some great acting, nice clean comedy & it teaches some good values to people, something that is sorely lacking in today's world.

Having said that, I see that the rating of this movie is 8.8 and I'm pretty sure the bollywood faithful are responsible for it. If you think about the movie from an international perspective, it lacks imagination - it is yet another of the typical bollywood movies - silly singing & dancing & no novelty (except that the central character sees Gandhi, which had a good twist). The central characters are happy to be uneducated goons, the people who are powerful are also uneducated & corrupt and this reality is what is depressing about the country and I find it hard to enjoy. When is bollywood going to make a Sci-fi like Jurassic Park or a drama like Crash or Brokeback mountain or a modern Martial arts classic like Ong-Bak so that it can truly challenge the international movie arena. I don't see that happening anytime in the next century.

In the meantime its going to be churning out millions of similar movies like Lage Raho ... every year only for stagnant people to rate it 8.8/10!

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Ultimate kung-fu comedy

[9/10 · 1 November 2005]

Hi all, I started watching Kung-fu hustle out of sheer boredom on my flight to Japan. I expected it to be another boring martial arts movie with clichéd story lines and bad acting. What I found was an amazingly entertaining, crazy, novel story with slap-stick comedy that had me laughing my *ss off loud. Stephen Chow is definitely putting China on the world cinema map with his genre of movies. The action is of course not real and has used computer effects - but I don't believe Chow is trying impress everyone just by having real martial arts a la Ongbak. He is an entertainer like Jackie Chan was in his prime. He even takes a cheeky punt at western movies like the Matrix and Spider-man which is pretty cool. The story of Kung-fu hustle itself is set in a sort of 70's China and people like me who love travelling and different cultures get a real feel of being in China. The story throws up a lot of crazy surprises like that of a children's fairy tale and is very funny and refreshing. I watched Kung-fu hustle a few times now and bought it on DVD and cant wait for his next movie. Kung-fu hustle gets a well deserved 9/10