Movie: Jab We Met
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Year: 2007
Stars: Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor and Tarun Arora

Snapshot of the story
“Same recipe with new cover on it” but it tastes a bit different from others and is good. Director Imtiaz Ali is not afraid of experiment and touched new heights in direction with “Jab We Met”. The story revolves around the two persons who are in love with some other person but as the fate has something else in their lives they meet each other. As they start spending time together they fall in love with each other. Story is perfectly handled with perfection by Imtiaz Ali which makes it look sweet and peppy love story.

Storyline
Aditya (played by Shahid Kapoor) is an industrialist and in love with a girl, but unfortunately the girl gets married to another person and the heartbroken Aditya being unable to muster up the courage to return home aimlessly boards the train bounding away into night.

On the other hand, a beautiful and annoyingly talkative girl Geet (played by Kareena Kapoor) leaves Mumbai to return her hometown Bhatinda. Co-incidentally both of them cross one another’s path by boarding the same train. Geet with her talkative nature irritates Aditya to the point of getting him to leave the train. Another misfortune happens there and both of them find themselves stranded on a desolate station with no luggage or money. Then both of them travel through bus, taxies and even in bullock cart to reach Bhatinda. Ths part of the movie is full of fun and confusion as Geet’s family think that Aditya is the boy friend. Soon both go back to their normal life ending it no high note. Both Aditya and Geet after an month with different situation in life and has feeling for each other but now both has confused feeling where they like each other or not and this keeps momentum of the story. First half of the movie is filled with fun, humor and charismatic presence of Kareena.

“Jab We Met” is peppy love story and Imtiaz Ali has made it look fresh. Story gives you plenty of reasons to laugh and one can take get lost in sweet screen romance of Kareena and Shahid. This is the story when Shahid and Kareena were having and affair which helped them portraying romantic scenes with ease.

Final Thoughts

First half of the movie is the best part of the movie and makes the audiences glued to their seat. Fresh story, good screenplay, charisma of Kareena Kapoor and impressive Sahid Kapur made it hit and Music by Pritam was icing on the cake. Pritam has did a successfully experiment with music as the fusion of Indian and western and made popular within young crowd. All in all a good entertaining movie with few hick up there and there this can easily be ignored.

Rating

“Jab We Met” scores 8 out of 10 for good music, mature performance, good all round performance in music helped in wining National Award for “Yeh Ishq Hai”. Movie did good office collection of $30 million.

Shahid Kapoor’s another average romantic movie - Mausam

Tags: Imtiaz Ali, Kareena Kapoor, movie reviews and ratings, Review of Jab We Met, Shahid Kapoor, Young Love Story of Kareena and Shahid - Jab We Met

Movie: Veer-Zaara
Director: Yash Chopra
Time: 2004
Stars: Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee, Manoj Bajpai, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini.

Snapshot of the story

The movie is about a Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Singh (SRK) and a Pakistani girl (Preity Zinta) who is daughter of a strong Politician Jahangir Hayat Khan (Boman Irani), about their love. Veer-Zaara is about the man who can sacrifice his whole life just for his love to be happy. The story also gives a message to strengthen a bond of love between the two neighborhoods countries India and Pakistan.

Storyline

Veer-Zaara is Yash Raj banner movie staring Shahrukh Khan as Veer Pratap Singh and Preity Zinta as Zaara. Veer is squadron leader in IAF and Zaara is daughter of renounced politician played by Boman Irani.

Veer-Zaara is an emotional love story that goes back in time also shows how true loves goes to trauma as they are not same religion and from rival countries. Zaara come to India from Pakistan for final rituals of her surrogate mother and met with an accident. Veer is part of rescue team save her life and also help her in rituals, both becomes good friend. Veer takes Zaara to his uncle’s place where Zaara shows interest in starting a school for girls. Impressed by her thought both uncle Choudhary Sumer Pratap Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) and aunt (Hema Malini) motivates him to propose her marriage. Before Veer could get chance to express his feelings he comes to know about Razaa that came to receive her on railway station.

Razaa ( Manoj Bajpai) is one who is going to marry Zaara, a decision takes by Zaara’s father to take the political mileage in Pakistan. Veer come to know that Zaara has feelings for him, he decide to go Pakistan to express his feelings. After reaching Pakistan Veer come to know that Zaara is getting married and now nothing much he can do in it. While returning back to her way to India Veer gets arrested and was put behind the bars slashing charges of Indian spy by Razaa. The bus on which Veer suppose to traveling met with an accident and every one think that Veer dead.

This entire plot get reveled by a human right activist Samiya Siddiqi (playes by Rani Mukherjee) who take his case to give him justice. After a trial court gives him clean chit, after 22 long years he sees Zaara. This part of the movie has touchy scenes and the king or romance Yash Chopra used all his experience looks very real onscreen.

Final Thoughts

Veer-Zaara is an emotional love story made by Yash Chopra who has been making love stories like Kabhi-Kabhi and SilSila was the bock buster in 70’s and 80’s. Shahrukh Khan gave his best performance and experimented by plying the role of Veer. Preity Zinta looked gorgeous. Good music that has become the hallmark of YashRaj Banner and with Veer-Zaara legendary music director Madan Mohan. Madan Mohan died in 1975 but his music was used in this movie which was remarkable achievement.

Rating

Veer-Zaara score 6 out of 10 for over all good performances by all and bags 1 extra star for Madan Mohan whose music was truly timeless, that make 7 out of 10. Veer-Zaara made good box office collections.

Shahrukh Khan riding bicycle on carter road with daughter Sunaha

Tags: Madan Hohan, Priety Zinta, Rani Mukherjee, Review of Veer-Zaara, Shahrukh Khan, The Timeless Love Story by Shahrukh Khan - Veer-Zaara

Movie: Enter the Dragon
Year: 1973
Genre: Martial Arts/Action/Drama
Director: Robert Clouse
Stars: Bruce Lee, John Saxon and Jim Kelly

Snapshot of Story:

An undercover agent joins a martial arts tournament held by a crime lord who is thought to be producing opium for distribution to a worldwide market.

Storyline:

An undercover agent Lee played by Bruce Lee joins the notorious tournament held by Hans who is thought to be producing illegal opium drugs in an island just off Vietnam. In addition to Lee another two central characters Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly) also join this tournament.

As they are whisked off to the island in boat and then helicopter one could see the many men of Hans in white suits practicing their karate. They are offered humble abodes for their stay and all the entertainment and pleasure they could dream off. When the host presents Williams with a bevy of beauties to choose from, he simply picks out an handful with a sly remark ‘Please don’t mind if I have left anyone out, but I am very tired today’.

On the first day of the tournament we see some comical events where Roper and Williams wage bets for some of the duels they are about to encounter. In one of the duels Williams takes a longer time than usual to finalize a deal with pundit and takes some beating before he is able to bring his opponent down. It clearly shows the supreme confidence and ability of the part of Williams and Roper in their fighting skills.

The star of the show as expected was Bruce Lee and his fighting was truly exemplary. In one scene he goes underground in the middle of the night and a guard is alerted. From heron some of best fighting scenes to have ever graced the screen is shown in full glory. Bruce Lee in his true form as one of the greatest on-screen martial artist of his time shows his stupendous skills in overpowering the many guardsmen.

In another memorable scene, when Lee encounters Oharra in one of the duels we see a flashback of how his sister had died in the hands of Oharra. The philosophy of Karate and Kung-Fu teaches one to be disciplined and to be free of vices and grudges and nowhere was this true as in this case. Lee overpowers Oharra in the sparring part of the fight with his lightning swift action and brings Oharra to the ground. When Lee turns away Oharra picks up two bottles from the crowd and breaks them ready to take on Lee again. This gives Lee the opportunity he was looking for and his entire rage and sadness from the death of his sister is focused in this one scene when he jumps up and breaks Oharra’s neck.

In the final scene Lee battles with Hans in the mirrored room where most people would go on to associate these scenes with this movie.

Final Thoughts:

Prior to ‘Enter the Dragon’ Bruce Lee made a number of movies in Hong Kong that brought him cult status and now with this Hollywood version brought Bruce Lee to world-wide fame. It was sad to see Bruce Lee die at an early stage in his life but he left a legacy that will be timeless and his style of fighting will continue on for many years to come.

Rating:
7.5/10

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Tags: Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee's Martial Art Fever on Box Office - Enter the Dragon, Jim Kelly, John Saxon, Martial Art movies, Review of Enter the Dragon

Movie: Chalte Chalte
Director: Aziz Mirza
Year: 2003
Genre: Romance, Emotion, Drama
Stars: Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee and Satish Shah

Snapshot of the story

Movie portraits the love story of Raj (played by SRK) and Priya (played by Rani) coming from different background and fall in love with each other but slowly their relationship started to show cracks in the seams. Movie takes an unusual twist and turns as their relationship starts with a fight, how Raj conveys Priya who is going to marry some other guy that he is the Mr. Perfect for him. Chalte Chalte is emotional love story made under Shahrukh Khan’s own production house Red Chillies Entertainment.

Storyline

Raj (Shahrukh Khan) is an entrepreneur and one day while being on his way to hill station he meets by accident Priya (Rani Mukherjee). There starts the Mars vs. Venus relationship and fights blaming each other but soon they realize that accidents happened because they both ignored the basic rules of love. Raj and Priya become friends. As they start meeting each other Raj has feeling for Priya, however on the other hand Priya is about to leave to Athens for her wedding to be.

Raj (Shahrukh Khan) has some other plan in his mind and boards the same flight to win back Priya’s (Rani Mukherjee) heart and make her believe that he is the Mr. Right for her. This small section is funny and also the most romantic part of the movie. Raj (Shahrukh Khan) makes all the funny and crazy attempts to rethink Priya (Rani Mukherjee) about her decision. Failing to change her mind as they both reach Athens where Priya (Rani Mukherjee) tells the entire episode to her father. Her father makes Priya understood and realize that how much Raj loves her and wants Priya (Rani Mukherjee) to get married with Raj.

Chalte Chalte becomes the emotional drama and often slow and boring drama as the relationship between Raj and Priya starts showing problems. Priya being grown up in a rich family and loves cleanliness, punctuality and other good habits but Raj being of middle class, hard working man is not able to follow all these systematic habits and the financial crisis makes the situation worst. Unable to handle this situation Priya goes back to her parents leaving Raj alone. Emotional drama continues as how Raj handles this situation and brings himself back to normal life from this situation and also wins Priya’s heart.

Final Thoughts

Director Aziz Mirza gave his 100% to make this hit but it does have a weak storyline, unconvincing drama and sad screen play which did not lift the movie. Chalte Chalte impresses audience in patches which is the sad part of story. Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee were good and gave their solid performance. Music of the movie was good which is evident as Jatin-Lalit made award wining compositions. Chalte Chalte did an average business of $16 million but was in the top ten when it comes to the gross collections.

Rating
Chalte Chalte scores 7 out of 10 for strong performance by Shahrukh Khan. Aziz Mirza made a good effort to make an average story where it can not be called as flop.

Upcoming movies of Shahrukh Khan in 2011 - 2012

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Tags: Aziz Mirza and Shahrukh Khan made and average love story - Chalte Chalte, Movie review of Chalte Chalte, movie reviews and ratings

Movie: Predator
Year: 1987
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Director: John McTiernan
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Kevin Peter Hall

Snapshot of Story:
Predator is a fast action packed sci-fi that finds a group of commandos battling with a superior alien in the heart of a South American jungle.

Storyline:
Top hit movies of today leave a lasting impression with viewers long after they have watched the movie. This would apply to Predator where it is not so much the subject that is appealing but the fact that the director manages to create an overall atmosphere that keeps viewers engaged in the showing. The same applies to great entertainers such as Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley where they have superb inner talent to keep the audience engaged.

The commandos led by Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) are immediately dropped off by a helicopter in the heart of an unknown South American jungle and assigned to a mission that is not all that clear. There is no waiting about for the action to start and they soon find themselves battling with an unknown enemy who seemed to know their every move.
In one scene Dillon (Carl Weathers) finds himself in an opening in the jungle and rapidly fires his machine gun which is torn away along with his arm by the enemy’s blasts. The director does an excellent job of using the jungle to show off the enormous firepower of the commandos to give an heightened sense of realism.

The rest of the cast in the movie were well chosen with each offering a different perspective on the enemy and in particular when one of them started meditating as to assume an evil force that is hunting them. This was an excellent touch to the movie as it slowly brought the commandos to the realization that the enemy was not of this planet.

In true ‘Arnie’ style, the commando Dutch has to battle with the alien single-handedly after the demise of all his comrades. Using his wits and great improvisation Dutch is able to finally defeat the alien.

In one scene Dutch realizes some of the limitations of the alien when he finds himself in a mudslide and covered in mud where the alien is unable to detect him.

Final Thoughts:
The movie Predator was another barometer of its time in creating an atmosphere that fixated the audience and kept the pace right through to the end. One has to ask questions as to the motivation of the thrill of hunting and killing on the part of the alien. In most cases when we refer to aliens, we see them as invaders or as friends but the twist here is that we have aliens that are neither and their only objective is to hunt and kill. This movie spawned off many other offshoots using this primary theme including Predator 2 (1990), Alien vs Predator (2004) and more.

Ratings:
8/10

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Tags: movie reviews and ratings, Movie Reviews and ratings of Sci-Fi - Predator, review of Predator