Hmm. Where do I start with my review on this film?

Let’s start with the summary, or the rating. On my scale it scored a good rating because I did not sleep! There were parts in fact in the first half where, because of a heavy lunch, I almost dozed off. But overall, it was quite entertaining. Of course, if you ask me from what I know now, if I would go to the movies and spend $10/person on that movie, I would say ‘no’.

So first thing - Subhash Ghai. That is what pulled me to this movie. I did not know the storyline, nor the starcast. I went for it because it was his first directed film after a long time. But for some reason I was quite disappointed. First of all, there were not too many long scenes, so that scenes kept fading out and fading in a lot. It could be that they were edited for the US audience, but whatever. My takeaway was that there were too many short scenes.

Secondly, there were no good effects. The horses for example, sounded way too electronic. Also, some of the fight scenes and riot scenes looked too ‘studio-like’. And that’s a pity, coming from Ghai and coming in this day and age.

On to the movie and the first positive thing in the movie is the various shots of the valley. The mountains, with the greenery, with snow-capped peaks in the background, and fog sometimes and sun others, was simply beautiful. There are a lot of such shots in the movie and I loved those. In fact there was also one quick scene in London and I liked that too, with the fall-like colors. I think it was in one of the songs.

The next positive in the movie is the presence of, and acting of Antonia Bernath. She is so beautiful and she shows that she was not in it just for face value. She has acted very very well. As I read somewhere, the movie should not have been called Kisna, but Katherine. I sorta agree. The movie is not about him, it is about her. She has done quite well for herself, and looks well throughout the movie.

The soundtrack is not-so-bad, but I don’t think I remember any particular song or theme now, a few hours after the movie. Plus, repeating some of the tunes/songs makes it difficult to associate a song/tune with a scene.

Negatives - the other girl has been wasted. She can consider herself ‘launched by Ghai’ but there was nothing for her to do in the move except dance. More on that later. She can’t act much and thankfully she is not made to act much. But in general, she could have been used more, not only in the existing script, but also, with a slightly different script. She looks pretty and has great moves, but then again, so do many of Shiamak Davar’s students :-)

Another major major negative is the overuse of the ghagra in the dances pictured on Luxmi. Why does he have to fan out the ghagra so much? Did not understand that.

And what is it about her and the rope?? She is unbelievably flexible, but I did not go to see Cirque du Soleil! I was quite turned off after a few seconds of the rope thing.

Subhash Ghai should focus on producing movies and directing masala films rather than coming out with such serious movies. But I would not say that the movie was a waste of money either. Go watch it. Antonia will not disappoint you.