Ek Hasina Thi (2004)

Ek Hasina Thi (There was once a beautiful Girl) is the debut movie produced by one of my favourite directors Sriram Raghavan. I became aware of this movie through imdb, whenever i was researching a hindi film, it was always on the recommendations list, as it's one of the highest rated hindi movies on imdb so i decided to check it out.

Sarika (Urmila Matondkar) is an easy going, next door type girl who works at a travel agent, one day a gentleman by the name of Karan (Saif Ali Khan) walks into the agency and takes a liking to her
Sarika seems very reluctant towards Karan at first but as time goes on she warms up to him and they both fall in love
One day Karan leaves for his business trip, while away he calls Sarika and asks if she could host his friend for a few hours, Sarika being a good girlfriend welcomes his friend enthusiastically

After a short while Abhijit leaves Sarika's place telling her he needs to run some errands and would come back to pick up his luggage. A few hours after his departure Sarika hears on the news that Abhijit's is a gangster and has been murdered , a panicky Sarika calls Karan and Karan urges her to get rid of Abhijit's suitcase. On her way to get rid of the case Sarika gets confronted by the police and they search the suitcase
Sarika is taken into custody and questioned by the police, Sarika repeatedly denies knowing Abhijeet but fails to tell them she knew him through karan since he had urged her not to reveal his name. Karan provides Sarika with a lawyer who urges Sarika to plead guilty, sayin the judge might pardon her. Sarika pleads guilty but unfoutunately things do not go as planned and Sarika gets sentenced to 7 years in Jail. Finally Karan comes to visit her and he tells her she'll get used to life in Jail in a couple of days

It FINALLY dawns on Sarika that Karan had taken advantage of her, what would sarika do next? Will she spend her whole sentence in Jail or will she escape? What will she do to avenge what Karan had done to her? Find out when you watch 'Ek Hasina Thi'

Overall Ek Hasina Thi was an entertaining thriller movie,that's worth watching, it doesn't come up close to Sriram's second movie Johnny Gaddar, but as this was his first movie, he does a good job. Urmila gives a great performance and Saif plays the cunning boyfriend really well, he looks ultra gorgeous in this movie, i've seen him in many movies and i know he's a good looking guy but he really shines in ths one.
A down point of the movie is that it drags on a bit too long, Sriram could have wrapped the whole thing up in less than 2hrs, considering the fact it had no songs.

Total Score: 7/10

Meri Jung (1985)

As a great lover of Anil Kapoor , i'd read him describe Meri Jung as an highlight of his career in an interview, thus i knew i had to check it out. Meri Jung was directed by Subhash Ghai and the music of the movie was by Laxmikant Pyarelal.

Meri Jung tells the story of Deepak Verma, an innocent man who's being framed for murder which is punishable by death in the gallows. Deepak has a wife Mrs Verma played by Nutan Behl and two kids Arun (Anil Kapoor) and Pinky ( Khushboo). G.D Thakral (Amrish Puri) is the corrupt lawyer who has been bribed to ensure Deepak Verma is sentenced to death
Mrs Verma is distraught with the possibility of her husband facing the gallows and she decides to go and persuade G.D Thakral to at least sentence him to life in prison rather than have him killed, headstrong G.D Thakral refuses and then tries to seduce her, a furious Mrs Verma gives him a hot slap, curses him and tells him that one day his bad deeds shall catch up with him, and he shall beg for mercy but find none
Deepak Verma gets sentenced to the gallows and Mrs Verma goes into a state of shock and then goes missing leaving her kids behind

The kids fend for themselves and Arun grows into a very successful lawyer who's very passionate about his work, he also reviews and follows G.D Thakral's court cases secretly hoping to expose him someday as a corrupt Lawyer. His sister Pinky is a student at college

One day a case which has been thrown out by lots of lawyers gets to Arun, the client Geeta (Meenakshi Sheshadri) wants Arun to defend her sister who's been framed of poisoning a patient
Arun is reluctant at first saying lack of witnesses makes the case implausible, Geeta persuades him and begs him that failure to help could mean that an innocent person would be sentenced for life. Arun remembers his father and how he had been wrongly sentenced and decides to defend Geeta's Sister, and then wins the case.
Arun gains favour and respect from Geeta's family for winning the case and Geeta falls in love with Arun
Arun's sister happens to be in the same college as G.D Thakral's son Vikram (Javed Jaffrey) who seems to be like an extra from fame [wish i had a screen grab of him doing one of his hilarious break dance moves]. One day due to a clash with Arun he decides to get back at him by dating his sister Pinky who also falls for him. Arun and Pinky clash over her love interest and she desides Vikram's the one for her . One day one of his old flames confronts Pinky and warns her about Vikram, telling her he's a good for nothing and how he had deserted her, Vikram gets angry and stabs his ex to death.

He gets caught in the act and a big showdown court battle begins between G.D Thakral who has to defend his son from death in the gallows and Arun who has been waiting a lifetime to avenge his father's death

Who will win in the court showdown? Will Arun & Pinky get reunited with their long lost mother? What mischievious schemes will G.D Thakral plot in order to prove his son's innocencence?


Overall Meri Jung is worth watching and quite entertaining, the ending let it down a little as it dragged on a bit too much for me, also i was expecting a huge verbal showdown in the final scenes but I was a bit disappointed with the way things went. The music in the film is good from the fun Bol baby Bol Rock n' Roll' complete with cars with rock n' roll spelt on top of them
with choreography that gives grease a run for its money to the haunting 'zindagi har kadam'.
You can watch the whole movie with English Subtitles in 16 parts on Youtube

Total Score: 6/10

Jaani Dost (1983)

Image Courtesy of The Hotspot Online

Ok i'll admit that what led me to this movie was the fact that it was a box office hit in India, i've an obsession with watching movies that were hits in India. Aside from the movie being a hit, i am a big fan of Dharmendra, Jeetendra & the starcast in this movie, and I was looking forward to a hit masala flick, but i have to say, this movie disappointed me in a crazy way. As much as i am a collector of movies that were box office hits in India, Jaani Dost is one hit movie that won't be going into my collection, hammy editing, an incoherent storyline, and too much silliness makes this a forgetteable and overbearing watch, i was tempted so many times to eject the dvd and post it back but i kept thinking it might get better which didn't happen.Unless you are a die hard fan of any of the actors please avoid this movie, as it'll do your head in, this is a masala gone wrong kind of flick

The movie starts with a Thakur being warned by his assistant that he's about to be murdered, the Thakur on his bid to save his life, escapes with his son, leaving his heavily pregnant wife behind

On his journey the Thakur is killed and his son is thrown out of the train. Luckily a passerby sees the boy and takes him home

After a short while the boy starts getting mistreated and is sent out of the house, incidentally an orphaned boy next door gets thrown out as well. The two boys meet and strike a friendship

Due to lack of money, the boys decide one of them would go to school while the other will work

The two boys grow up, and one of them (the uneducated friend) grows up to be Dharmendra, who dries a truck called Sholay (the movie made lots of references to movies and popular actors at the time, some of which were funny and others were dry)

The other brother Jeetendra is introduced as a shady Character working for the villains, to conceal his identity to his illiterate friend (Dharmendra) he tells him he is an Inspector and his post is an ABCD (I lie not, such was the ridiculousness of this movie)

As the movie goes on, Jeetendra is revealed as a real cop who had joined the villains with the intention of exposing them. And i shall stop writing about this crazy movie right now, the rest of the movie is taken over by monkey's kissing, a kung fu fighting Sridevi and bad costumes.

The music of the movie was average and i am going to refer to the music as 'bubblegum filmi' music (silly catchy songs), one includes a Japanese/Chinese sounding pop music with Dhamendra hollering beauty queen at Parveen Babi , another one features a drunk Sridevi & Jeetendra referencing popular movie stars of the time and a catchy disco number by Asha Bhosle & Kishore Kumar .

Overall this movie is on the bland, annoying side which should be avoided, unless and i repeat UNLESS you are a die hard fan of any of the actors.

Total Score: 3/10

Yay! My first Post

After months of reading and loving lots of Bollywood blogs i've been inspired to start mine as well, i chose the name bollywooddeewana (bollywood crazy) as i'm totally obsessed by the Hindi film industry. My introduction to bollywood, was as a kid in Nigeria in the '80's, hindi films were really popular and we had a few at home that i would watch over and over and over, Suraag is the first hindi movie i watched at about the age of three, (i've been trying to find this movie on dvd but can't find it anywhere, so if anyone knows where i can get it, please send me an e-mail). I'll be offering my reviews and thoughts on bollywood movies complete with screen grabs and fun writing, so please follow this blog and join me on this fun bolly adventure.

Below is one of my favourite filmi songs as a kid, i remember dancing and singing to this non stop as a kid (ah the memories :0)