Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (1996)

Rekha! Rekha! Rekha how i love thee, as those who read this blog regularly know, i've nothing but love for Rekha and would gladly watch any film of hers no matter how rubbish or atrocious it might be. This film with its nonsensical storyline reminds me why i simply love Rekha, she's one bollywood heroine who fought hard against playing motherly roles when she was deemed to be past it by many, even if it meant she played ridiculous characters, Rekha fought hard gainst playing motherly roles and in Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi ( The Player of Players) Rekha plays a Villain and might i add she pulls it off mighty darn well, and of course this film also features Akshay in his 90's hairy chest action hero days

Madam Maya (Rekha) & King Don (Gulshan Grover) are underworld players who gamble with the lives of wrestlers

following the defeat of Crush (played by real life WWF wrestler Brian James) by Maya's The Undertaker (played by WWF wrestler Brian Lee). Ajay (Inder Kumar) one of Madam Maya's boys is ordered to dispose the body, He's caught by the police while trying to bury the body & is given the option of execution or outing Madam Maya if he wants to save his life

Maya comes to know to know through one of the corrupt police officers about Ajay's plan to out her, as a result she becomes eager to kill Ajay. Ajay is kidnapped

Akshay (Akshay Kumar) his brother in India hears of the news & travels to America in a bid to rescue his brother, on his way he meets and falls for Priya (Raveena Tandon) who happens to be Madam Maya's younger sister

When he arrives in America he finds out from Ajay's friends that Madam Maya may be responsible for Ajay's kidnap, as result he gets into her gang, with the intention that she might lead him to Ajay. Madam Maya is taken by Ajay's bravado when he rescues her from getting killed, she falls in love with him at which point she puts all feminists to shame by declaring 'his love has completed her'

Thus Akshay is now caught in between the love of two sisters



Will Akshay find Ajay his brother? What will be Madam Maya's reaction when she realises Akshay had merely been using her as a pawn that'll lead him to his brother?


A truly nonsensical action film in the very sense of the word, fans of early Akshay movies when he was going through his Jackie Chan phase will truely enjoy this film. The major highlight for me however was Rekha as the villain Madam Maya with all her fashion outfits and wig changes

I can totally see Rihanna in some of these looks

when i saw Rekha in this film i realised Lady Gaga's stylist must have watched this film to create some of her looks

Take that Gaga

Another reason this film will forever be in my mind is the Rekha and Akshay Kumar's frolicking in the song 'Dil Dhadke (In the night lose control)'

They wrestle each other in the mud

They shower together

He pretty much had her eating out of his hands

Now of course all this had tongues wagging that Rekha and Akshay were dating, some fans were worried of what had become of their favourite actress but she silenced all her critics when she was awarded the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress award and the Star Best Villain Award (Take that Haters)


Anu Malik as usual has concoted some fun catchy numbers like 'Aaj meri Zindagi' , 'itna mujhe pata hai' & 'Tu kaun hai' & my favourite number without a doubt is Dil Dhadke (In the night lose control) simply for its awesomeness as well as a brief sampling of Madonna's 'Secret', be sure to check out the video especially the beginning where Rekha says 'Even Naughty Girls Need love Hey na?' Atta Girl!

Paisa Vasool rating: 5/10 (Watch it mostly for Rekha and Akshay in his cheesy days as an Action Hero and oh for the 'Dil Dhadke' song, that alone made the movie worth watching)

Laadla (1994)

Long before Meryl Streep played Miranda Prestley in Devil wears Prada there was Sridevi as a no nonsense woman in this moderately entertaining drama

Sheetal Jetley (Sridevi) is a high powered, high achiever, she hates being second in life, the top is the utmost position for her and she strives for this always, She runs her father's company Sheetal's textiles making it the Number 1


One day she comes across Raju (Anil Kapoor), the two are involved in an arguement culminating in him telling her that women should be coy and men be bold


A rival company fronted by Suryadev (Prem Chopra) his son (Monish Behl) and his brother (Paresh Rawal) are jealous of Sheetal's success in leading her father's company to the top, they hatch a plan to get her married to Monish so that they can merge and then eventually take over the company, Sheetal gives them the cold shoulder,this makes them vengeful

Raju saves Sheetal's Dad from villains one day and as a reward he's employed by Sheetal's dad as Chief mechanic in Sheetal Textile Industries, while there Raju he meets and falls for Kaajal (Raveena Tandon)


Raju also gathers a huge following and the workers soon start protesting against the demands of Sheetal. When Raju challenges her ego in front of the workers Sheetal is gutted and plans to avenge his actions by marrying him out of spite, even though she knows he's in love with Kaajal

She manipulates his crippled mother Farida Jalal to get him married to her only, she also bullies her into making Raju come live with her at her place

Raju is releuctant about leaving his mother but she insists and he gets married to her and he promises to come back after teaching her a lesson

When they get married she begins torturing Raj by refusing to have sex with him, she also keeps him as her subordinate, through all this she begins breaking Raju's assertive personality

Meanwhile Mr Bhandari (Shakti Kapoor) who despises Sheila's manipulative ways makes allies with Suryadev's company, together they plan on defaming Sheetal Industries thereby knocking it off the top

Would they be successful? How much more of Sheila's manipulation would Raju be able to take? What would be the end of Sheila, would she die a filmi type bad girl death or would she li=ve to realise the errors(?) of her ways? Watch Laadla to find out

This is without doubt one of Sridevi's finest roles, given the rampant and in fact very true complaints of the lack of strong female characters in bollywood films, Sheetal's role in Laadla (Darling) was a very interesting one, albeit the fact that her character was cast in a negative light, Sridevi shines and gives and excellent performance as Sheetal.


The downsides and in fact the major reason why this interesting drama loses points with me is the fact that Sheetal's egomaniac, inconsiderate attitude was attributed to her education in a western country, in that sense the west is painted as an evil place and in the end when she finally realises the error of her ways she's starts dressing in a Sari (wrong, very wrong). I thought such moral lines were something movies like Jab Jab phool Khile in the '60s sought to convey, and surely film director's in the '90's would have been way enlightened than use such moral codes. At the heart of the film is that which Raju's character had coveyed to Sheetal that men should be bold and women coy (definitely not one i agree with)

A great point akbarnali an imdb commenter makes about Sridevi's role as Sheetal in Laadla is that it paved the way for the bollywood anti-heroine such as that of Kajol in Gupt, Manisha in Dil se & Yugpurush, Juhi Chawla in Arjun Pandit etc

Sridevi was stylish though and she looked fierce in her corporate skirt suits and bobbed hair with bangs

Very Coco Channelesque with the pearls and all


Gotta love that fringe

And of course this film is famous for Sridevi's 'understand, You better understand' dialogue after which she clicks her fingers, you can see it here around the 2.28 mark

'Understand, you better understand'

The music by Anand Milind is good among my favourites are the very 90's romance sounds of 'Meri Dhadkan suno' the infectious 'Ladki hai kya' the heavy rhythms of 'Mere Ghulam' the sentimental 'Teri Ungli Pakadke' which celebrtaes the joy of motherhood and the atypical Sridevi Anil Kapoor seductive song 'Dhak Dhak Dil Dhadak'


Total Score: 6/10 ( An enjoyable even if somewhat flawed moral drama)

Laadla is available with English Subtitles on Youtube in 17 parts

Edited to add
Laadla is a remake of a 1992 Telugu movie called Gharaana Mogudu

Also the late Divya Bharati is said to have been playing the role of Sheetal until her sad and untimely death caused Sridevi to replace her, below is some of the scene's Divya shot, what an awesome actress she is, I wonder what this film would have been like with her as Sheetal