Ek Tha Tiger

We're in. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club Show, where we talk about Indian cinema every other week. I am your host, Chris Dasho the Culture Cast where this show got spun up from spun Up spun off Brown, and I am joined by my good friend you've heard him here before talking about Indian cinema more specifically Indian Your friend and mine, good old artist among men. Hello at the Tiger himself. Yeah, hello, yeah, boy, Yeah, I mean Salmon Khan's voice doesn't go as deep as Srk's does an.

Yeah, the Srki's got quite the range. Yeah. So if you clicked on this episode, you know we're gonna be talking about We're gonna be talking about a little film that kickstarted the Why r F Spy universe, But boy, it kind of didn't seem like there was anything connected coming out of this movie. Be talking about twenty twelve's Kabir Khan Directed a Tiger otherwise owe is There Once was a Tiger? Film is directed by Kabir Khan, written by Kabir Khan and Nalish Mizra.

It stars one and only one of the three cons Salmon Khan and Katrina kef Salmon Khan plays the titular Tiger, who is a raw officer who goes on a mission to spy on who else. Roshan Seth otherwise is chatter Lall from Temple of Doom, which is a great face to see outside of that movie, and he plays a scientist who Salmon Khan is tasked with with shadowing because he may be leaking nuclear secret. However, Katrina Keff plays an ISI agent who is also undercover trying to support the actions of our titular character, Tiger. Dustin, I am so curious because you and I went and saw Passon together and this, this character of Tiger shows up in that movie, and if you listen to our episode on Pathon, you'll know all about our feelings on him in that movie.

But this is our this is our opportunity to see not only Salmon Khan in his own movie, but Katrina Keff in a role that is bigger than any of the roles I've seen here in up until this point. So I'm curious, Dustin, what did you think about Eck the Tiger? Well, having seen Tiger show up in Pathon, I mean, not knowing anything about his backstory. That was a cool moment, but it gave me cause to go find out more about Tiger, and so watching this movie, I was kind of excited to get more on what the Tiger's story was and what I thought about it. It was.

It was a fun watch. It was almost like a combination of foreign identity and the man who knew too little right had this like seriouous action with like silliness. It was kind of a unique combination of things. It was kind of an action movie that was silly but wanted to be serious. But in granted, I've only seen a couple of these spy movies, but they really liked their pseudo agents and triple agents and stuff like that.

People making decisions that aren't actually what we're seeing and we're seeing it's a different angle. Yeah, they keep guessing. Yeah, So you know, first I want to mention something, and I'll mention this for the both of us, but it's something that has to be mentioned because we haven't talked about him yet off this show. So it bears mentioning the issues that Salmon coan, namely running people over by accident and killing them while drunk, which is as about a bad thing as you can humanly do and then more or less not having to pay the consequest in any way. Yeah, I mean it's it's and you know again, you it's not a uniquely American thing that if you're rich and able to pay someone well enough that you can get away with anything.

It's not a uniquely American. It's a uniquely people in positions of power or people with notoriety. So I don't want to drag salmon coan, but we have to mention that salmon Con has some problematic things about him as a person, not salmon Con the actor. So just need to get that out of the way now, just like if we were talking about any other person, like a Roman Polanski film, because again you kind of pardon Parcel with talking about Polanski and statutory rape. Can't get around those things.

So all of that aside. I had a lot of I had a lot of fun with this movie. I had a lot of fun with a movie that, like you said, has a tonal shift about halfway through the first part of the movie is a comedy more or less. There are some kind of flashbacks that have a little bit of action, and there's a little bit of action in the opening of the film. But it's a comedy for the first hour of a two and a half hour movie, and then we transition into something more akin to less bombastic Pathos Sword of I mean again, this movie doesn't have a real antagonist.

It's more about the relationship between selmon Khan and Katrina Keff, who are fantastic. They have such good screen presence together. They have a lot of chemists and look again, Selmunkan's issues aside, he is a charismatic act. He is so charismat and you can't help but root for his character. But that being said, I kind of wish it had just been the comedy throughout the whole movie because the second half of the movie is okay.

I didn't like it as much. The part where they're trying to get away together right where they're all a run is it's not as interesting. It's a totally new storyline embedded in. It could have been two movies, right, I mean again and I and you know, in a lot of the movies that we've talked about together, like Bahubali you know one and two we talked about and we've talked about it with other things. Even Pathan where they have a flashback within a flashback of a character that could not know this flashback of this character because it's a different character.

These storytelling conventions are played with heavily in Indian cinema, too often very successful effect, using flashbacks, using cutaways and then flashbacks, which this movie does. There's a lot of that well, and I think we're not pointing it out because, like, at least I'm not pointing it out because I didn't like that. It's just different. It's something that you notice while watching because it's different. It stops being a funny movie.

In the second half, there's very much so yeah, once they make it to Havana and they get held up at gunpoint, essentially it becomes a very different movie. It'll and again I don't think it's not as good as the first part of the movie. I think it's just not as entertaining because it's very much something we've seen before. And that's not to say that, like you said, the Man who Knew Too Little, let's not to say that we haven't seen things like an agent pretending to be a dope to put one over on his targets so that he can get information from him it's like we haven't seen that before. It's just here.

It's done really well, and the chemistry between Salmon Khan and Katrina Keff is so good that I wanted to see more of the quiet moments between the two of them and less the moments of them beaten the shit up. Not that it's not entertaining, not that it's not well done, not that it's not well shot, it's just it doesn't There's plenty of this kind of stuff we've seen before, both in Indian cinema and an American cinema that, like you said, it's born identity adjacent. Not in a bad way, but not in a way that's really making me go wow and take pawt an interesting thing, I know, just because the movie kind of intrigued me, just because of all the locations they shot at, like they were everywhere. I wanted to know more about that.

As I was looking into that, we both mentioned boorn identity. There were born identity stunt people that helped or stunt directors that helped on this film. It's weird that we got that vibe from it. I mean, his character is Jason Bourne in a lot of yeah totally like yeah, that the opening, because the movie opens with a James Bond opening, right, and it opens the way all these kind of big action movies where it's a spy, they all a lot of them open the same way with this big, crazy opening of him going and doing something and getting away, and then it's like, you know, what's my next assignement? Like that's that is this movie in a nutshell because again it works.

It works in James Bond every time, like, yeah, there's a reason they do it. So them setting kind of the tone for this movie feels very born, and then they pivot away from it, and it feels so kind of refreshing that it's like, well it's not just there's a little bit of it, but it's not just that. Well, even right after all the action kind of born like setting of the movie, they before he gets his next assignment, they cut to him like at his house or in his neighborhood with the milkman, and he even has his double O seven T shirt on it, but all his neighbors are like, oh, he's back, where's he been? It's been months. But even right there, the comedy starts to kick in because there's the one neighbor guy and his wife like water in the lawn or something, and he tells his wife stops staring at him, and she's like, I'm not and she hasn't broken like gaze towards him once and he's just standing there looking at her.

I got cracked up in that moment. I was like, I thought this was like a big time action movie, Like why it was just these little subtle comedy things that started to come out and then they kind of got sprinkled in here and there and that, Like you said that first half of the of it, well, I mean they do this thing in the first half of the movie. And now you know, we we watched the trailer for this movie together and we kind of didn't understand some of the stuff that we saw on the trailer. And that's because in the movie those scenes are completely like out of context, intentional, like the scene with him running from a bunch of women with Burka's on the scene where he's like I'm James Bond double O seven, like that is not in the that's in the movie the same way it's in the trailer.

It's just that, but it's it's him, it's him trying to be like nobody even believes me when I tell them what I do, like yeah, or what you wish as he could say, right, like And what's great is that those scenes within the movie are these interesting kind of cutaways to something that is also still funny. It's funny, and then they're cutting away to something funny and they're cutting back and look again, someone kN is a believable action star, but he's also really funny. He has really good comedic timing, and he also has a really expressive fate. Yeah, and he's really good at emoting, but not mugging, because you know, on the Police Squad show that I do with Projection Boots, Mike White and Wake Up Heavy Mark Begley, which you can find over on the weirding Way Media Network, we talk about Leslie Nielson mugging all the time and mugging and mugging being kind of the death of Naked Gun because mugging is just not funny, like someone going for ten seconds is not funny.

It's like, show me what they're mugging at, show me what the mugging's about, Tell me what the muggings about. And it could have veered into that territory in this movie, and it just does. It's just him being funny and having good facial reactions to the wild stuff that's happening around him while he's trying to keep his cover. You know, quote unquote, well in those moments you're talking about, I didn't think about it at the time, but where like thinks something gets said, like don't you like dogs? And then it cuts like he kind of stares at the camera.

Then it cuts to him running away from dogs like vicious dogs. But like, so we've got comedy, we've got action, and we've got breaking the fourth wall because he does he turned and he looks at the viewer like, right, who is that for the benefit for It's for our real right, And that's again, think of any James Bond movie, any Born movie, any Mission Impossible movie. There's never a moment where they're like, hey, their viewer, check this out. But it might work because again, like yeah, self, I mean, you know, not to go like full dead with well it's connection right, right, Yeah, If you go full Deadpool and you have this like hyper self awareness, it's like, okay, we get it, like you're going to hang a lantern, but this is like it's just subtle enough where it could even be perceived as maybe not even fourth wall breaking, and just you know again again just like oh, you're insighted, you're seeing his his memory of the thing.

But again like for whose benefit are we seeing? Right? Yeah? And why is he got to look at me? Right?

Exactly? But what I really love about this movie is is the chemistry between Salmon Khan and Katrina cav Like they're they are very good together and believable, Like in a lot of ways, they're like sr K and Kadgele were for DDOJ, where it's like you have two people who just happen to have a lot of chemistry separately and charisma with a lot of other actors, but when they're together, it's like these are these are the two actors who are meant for each other. This is the fourth time they're together. Wow, And they're together one more time at least for Tiger and then another time because Tiger three is Oh she's gonna mean that too, all right. Yeah, So that's six movies together.

That's a lot. And it's a you mentioned it with than it's another you know, Pakistan relations thing going on. I mean, this is where it came from, right, well, I mean again, I'm sure it has been in plenty of Indian cinema films before that I have not seen and I'm not going to send that core of what's going on in both movies. Really, Yeah, I wanted to ask you where is it done better? Is it done better here in Pathan?

I have an answer myself, but I'm curious if you agree or have a different differing answer. I think in what I've seen with these spy Universe or spy er stuff, I mean we've seen too, I think it's done better than this one because it's very much raw versus ISI. Like it's they do a good job of kind of giving you that feeling that these are two organizations within those countries, governments that were made to cancel the other one out and they're they're sworn enemies. Well and in Pathot, I mean it's more or less used as like a plot device m H. I mean again, like she's not working for the Pakistani government in Pathot to pick up at a khone is working for g So it's it's less in that one Pakistan versus India.

That's more Pakistan at India, like working together to stop that exterior threat of Jim and his you know, jetpack riding pals out in Afghanistan. So in a lot of ways, like I one hundred percent agree, and I think that that is why they put it in Pathon, and I think didn't need to be in Pathon in a lot of ways, like it's it's done so good here that now this is going to kind of really suck to say, it kind of lessens Pathan, Okay, because this relationship is exactly the same one from Pathan. It's just done way better. Yeah, that's true. And again, like not to not to diminish SRK and Pica Potocone's chemistry, they have a lot of it.

They're a fantastic couple on screen. I look forward to seeing more of them in Paton two, three, four, and however many more they decide to make. However many more times he decides to show up. I'm fucking on board. But Salmon Khan and Katrina kV are so believable together and so just works so well off of one another.

Once we know what the score is, once we know that they know, we know that it's been revealed to the audience, because again, like in the trailer, they spoil it that she's inn isi ag. Yeah, that's true. But I mean the movie doesn't really let it, you know, let the cat out of the bag until the hour and a half where the movie chase is its tone, and we have this kind of scene that I feel it kind of deserves a little kind of analysis because it really sucks. And I hate that they did it in this movie because it feels really cheap. You're talking about when he shoots his gun, Yeah, it's I it's it's such a lazy storytelling divide.

Yeah, like, oh, he didn't shoot her, right, And I feel like it's maybe even less the shooting thing and more the fact that then we wait fifteen minutes to get what actually happened. Yeah, because we have we have a scene of him going to the professor's house to get the date off the computer and of course she's already there, turn around in the chair, you know, did you actually love me? Or yeah? And it's it's we again. This is the kind of it's either me or the mission or and you know again, we've seen this before plenty of thaing James Bond, Austin Powers makes fun of it.

Any spy thing tends to have a it's me or the mission type. So we have this very just again by the four Armila scene, and then salmon Kan shoots and we cut away and it doesn't come back to this answer of what's going on for literally fifteen where then it's him going and talking to you know, Sheenoi, the chief of Raw and talking to him about what's going on and what he had to do. And they even have this thing where he's like that agent that you killed, you always kill someone. In all these missions, the movie is continuing to try to convince you that he actually killed Katrina keV and it's it's just it's fifteen minutes. I feel like wasted time.

Well, it made me think after they revealed that she was still alive, like that Tiger tried to pass it off that he did kill her, you know, like did he go back and say, oh, yeah, I killed her, don't worry about her anymore. But it's not even made clear if that's the case. No, but I assumed that you're right, but the movie's trying to convince it did. To me. Well, that was the question I had for you, is like, is it actually believable to think that he would shoot her?

Well, when I saw it happen, and I thought two things right away. One was the kind of age old formula for this stuff that like, oh, I bet he didn't sign into the air. Yeah. But then I thought, well, I mean in Pathon, I saw somebody shoot a prayer to a woman in the belly, So maybe he did shoot it right between the eyes. I don't know.

I mean again, like, that's fair. But then I looked at the how much was left in the movie, and I saw like another hour and a half, and I was like, no, she can't be dead. There's no way that you are not in this movie. That's that's the privilege of a twenty twenty three movie watching is Who's got a progress bar? Yeah, that's fair.

I just I personally felt like, there's no way I believe that he's actually gonna kill Katrina. Kef Like, It's just like that relationship that they had on screen did not even lend me to believe that there would be any doubt in either one of their minds if they were put in that situation after having gone through all the things that they had gone through U until that point, which again it's not like he was being shot at all the time, but they had these this like really cute relationship that forms organic. They established a lot, right, there's no way I actually believe that he would kill her, Like no, no at all, Like, and I'm not saying it's because I'm a smart movie watcher. It says the movie didn't do enough to convince me that Tiger is that bad of a guy, because he would have to be like, he would have to be not bad, but like that devoted to the job.

Yeah, yeah, that's that's a good point. Falls in love with their way too fast. They are trying to also establish him as like, you know, the guy he's always been about his duty and he doesn't. I kind of was led to believe that he doesn't want to have regrets, you know, right, So yeah, you put all that into into play, and yeah, he wouldn't have shot her. I shouldn't have fallen for it.

Well, I mean again, like, what's crazy is that they reveal it in the trailer that she is a double agent. That, yeah, that's a twist that could be earned in that moment. I mean, I don't think you. I don't think if you're watching the movie and you don't know what the twist is, that you don't to sink well person in the chairs Katrina Keff like, it's it's just it's a weird twist to have in your movie because you literally spoil it in your trailer, but then they twist you, and then they twist you again. You get who more twists with their relationship.

Don't think either one really worked it for me. I'm a sucker. I don't think. I don't think I believe that she would turn on So I kind of figured once I showed her again, I'm like, Okay, they're gonna get back to her, and then you know, okay, yeah, they're gonna try to run away together. Cool.

I knew it. And you know, once I saw her, but then when he overheard her talking in like the marketplace with her other ISI guys, I was like, oh no, oh, she's gonna burn him. Oh like I bought it. I totally bought it. Okline and sink her.

I mean, I will tell you, I think it's I think it's less telegram yeah than the other. I just think what's weird is like we're trying to believe that she and him have this really strong relationship and then like I just don't think he would believe her, like, I mean, yeah, he over her, but like she would have told him that's the relate, Like it's just it's again like for for the movie, wanting to build their relationship to be as strong as possible, to get to the point whereas two characters we believe that two agents from the wrong side of the tracks, like one, you know what I mean, Like we need to believe his audience members that they are gonna run away together and if we have a doubt that she's gonna turn on him after they it's like, but but you know what those twists did to me towards the end of the movie, he chokes on that plane.

I thought she was gonna like boot him in the face. Really, like I thought there was gonna be another twist. Wow, So they had me out this oriented Chris Eck The Tiger, directed by m Night Shamalan, every opportunity to fake out the audience and subvert their expectations were taking it, guys. Yeah, yeah, I thought I thought she was gonna be like, ha, I'm actually is I still oooh yah? Later, dude, I think for me, when when we talk about the the you know, the the post twist where it's they meet up once again and he convinces her to run away with him, and they run off together, and then they're in Havana, Cuba, and you know they're they're being tracked and I I and Raw are looking for them.

It's just it feels like the Bourne identity. Yeah, it really does. Isn't that what the Boorne I haven't seen the Borne identity? A need very low? But is that not what the Bourne identic?

Correct me pretty much is Yeah, it's the This movie does follow that vibe quite a bit. Yeah, it's that trope. It's that it's that story. It's the agent who is burned that they're trying to track down to make sure because again they even say it in the movie multiple times. Uh Kirish karnad' shannoi, the chief of Raw, who I'm glad they ended up having someone else in Pathan because he's he's kind of really unlikable later in the movie, because like you're trying to that heaven right, and you try to believe him and Tiger have a relationship, but like he's just so like he's so willing and easily ready to cut him loose.

It's just like wow, Yeah, like, what the fuck man, He's like, oh he turned let's kill You. Were in this guy's house eating his doll for fuck's sake, and all of a sudden, you're like, fuck it, gotta go. This guy's gotta go, like Jesus Man, like Tiger said, he wanted to just if you when he was done, he was gonna go live a normal life. And you're like, yeah, well fuck that. Yeah, yeah, no, you're gonna die.

That's that's what You're gonna have a normal death, right. But it's weird because all of that stuff with him and her in Havana running away and born born identity stuff, like it's just to what end. Yeah, we know by this point they're not gonna get taken back. It, Like, we know that that's not gonna happen. So we're at this point less invested in what's happening in the movie and more invested in the set piece, which I think are pretty good.

Like that's that is kind of the thing that I do appreciate about the second half of the movie is while the plot is maybe not breaking any new ground in any way, at least the action set pieces are pretty Yeah. I was actually in both this Ampathon and even like Bahubali, I'm pretty impressed with the action scenes and fight scenes and like, I really enjoy them. And and we've said it before, I always see something that's a little different, a different approach to how a fight scene would play out. There's always something unexpected. I really like the scene when they're on the rooftop in Havana and they're running around and fighting the is I and Ray and the like random homage later on in the movie to Nashville Lampoon's Christmas Vacation where they're riding down the hill on the hoard car for a very long time after they rip it off the car, they're riding that door for a comically long Yeah.

Well, like that's I haven't seen that in another movie. And it again, I watch a fair amount of movies, so it's not like I don't watch action movies. You and I both watch a fair amount of eighties and nineties action movies up until this point in our lives, so we've seen a lot of it, and it's fun to see things we've never seen. That is a welcome aspect of Indian cinema that I think more people than just us would appreciate because again, I feel like, you know, I talk about it on other episodes of other podcasts I'm on, We in a lot of ways have stagnated on action movies, and superhero movies are now our action right, Yeah, and it's a lot of the same, like in a way that really is in a way that is really surprising, we've all kind of turned a blind eyed yeah.

Well, and it kind of got ingratiated, you know, like here here's a Marvel movie and it's like, how cool Marvel? Like I love these when I was younger, Like I read all those comics. Here's another installment, other Marvel movie, you know, and here's another character. And now it's just everything is in the mc hu well, and you know, it doesn't make it any better that you have to have seen everything now to get anything out of what you're watching. And it's like it's like drug addicts, right, it's like drug addicts.

You know. I refuse to continue on the sunk cost trade because I you know, the sunk cost fallacy is that, oh I've already sunk a thousand dollars into it, what's another one hundred dollars? It's another one hundred dollars you're gonna lose, So don't do it if you don't want to. And that's why I've kind of not given up on Marvel movies. But like, I'm not getting what I used to get out of them, And what I used to get out of them was being entertained and seeing some interesting action and some you know, kind of novel performances, and they don't just don't do it for me.

This kind of stuff does Indian cinema does. It has interesting action shot in an interesting way. If we're talking action that feels novel and fresh, and it feels like someone in the room was something to say, not just saying the same thing over and over, but in a different key, like actually singing a different song, like actually singing a song in a way that substantially changes it and makes people excited to see. Yeah, and and this whole spiverse thing is cool because it's it's the formula of bringing together all the big name people into one movie, you know, to have in movie claimax. Like I think that's what's happening, and you know it's probably gonna happen with Austra, But I like there's something about how these are done or the ones that have seen thus far that just seem more exciting just because like SRK is huge, Solomon CON's huge, and Solomon Con and Uh the way they are together, Like, I fully think that them two will be together SRK and Uh Topeka in a movie and I think that would be awesome, right, And then again, even to go further than that, my hope is that they bring in because again it makes just at this point, it just makes sense they need to get a mere Khan and they need to get a mere Khan into the Spy universe because to get the three of them on screen together doing this and having a posedown Avengers style would be so fucking cool.

It would be cooler than the event. I would sit there and just be like again, in all of the in all of the amount of coordination it would take to get that to happen. But again, it's not that much because we're talking about three actors as a sposed to twelve or one hundred or whatever amount. You can see gi into the same scene from a green screen somewhere that isn't actually together. I mean that's you know, that's the other thing at this point with you know, Marvel and Yeah, they're following the Marvel formul They all are.

I mean, so with most it may get to the point where we're like so sick and fucking tired of these spyings because they're all the same. We're not there yet, and we may never get there. They may continue to be quality and they stop at some point and it's not just milk, milk, milk, until there's nothing left like that. That's where we are with our stuff. Like with Indian cinema, sequels weren't a thing for a long time.

With American cinema, if you make a successful movie, you better make a fuck it. There's not a choice. That's right. Well, I'm sure Pathon had a lot more green screening then we realized. But in this movie I actually enjoyed, Like, as I'm watching it, I was noticing all the different places they were.

They were in Dublin, they're in Havana, they are is Tingbold, They're in Bangkok, they're in Deli. They were all over the place because they're trying to travel around and not be seen be found. But I just thought that was cool to like see all those areas and they were actually there filming it, which in this day and age feels like it feels like a hard sell. Yeah, you want me to go where and do what? I can't just walk over there and do it.

Got it? Got a green screen, just zoom me in and all. And you know that's not to say that the technology isn't isn't there to make the transition away from green screen to something else that could be just as interesting, like what HBO and Warner Brothers were using on Game of Thrones, where they're in a room that's surrounded by screens that are so high definition that they can shoot on that set and it can be so convincing that you don't have to do a whole lot. I mean, that's what they did with the new Game of Thrones. That's why it looks so fucking good, because again, it's not a guy on a green screen.

It's your set surrounded by the fake scene and it's it's insane to think about and it's insane to see it in process. And I know this is a complete tangent, but go if you have HBO Max. They did a whole making of House of the Dragon and they show this set and they talk about it over and over and over again, and it sounds like a miracle of modern filmmak, but at the same time it should be the future of filmmaking in a lot of ways because right, but also the whole CGI constantly thing, it's exhaust like, look, there are actual stud people doing the stunts in this movie, and a lot of it's not sol and a lot of it's not Katrina keV. But you know what, that's still someone doing it. Like even if it is Salmon Khan's face, maybe not the best cgi'ed onto their body, and it's sometimes very noticeable.

But again, limitations of the special effects house that's doing it, the limitations of the budget, what have you. That's fine, but they're still doing it. It's like wrestling, right, like, yeah, someone may not be punching someone in the ring, but when someone picks someone else up and slams them backward, there's no faking here. It's you've got people doing choreography, but it's real people doing it. It's not Paul Rudd in a CGI, you know whatever.

It's just and there. That is not something that could ever be replaced, no matter how good. And that's the thing with the Marvel stuff, when as soon as you put a mask on you can go full blown CGI, right, and that's always the joke. Now on the of Mushrooms and Men podcast where we talk about the Last of Us, it's a show where Pedro Pascal actually has to be in the show, and that just bois it not just a stud double or a body double in yeah, his voice. So again like that, that is a very cynical way of looking at it.

But it is also because it is so heavily relied on now and again not complaining about it, we get to see shit that doesn't actually exist so often now that we've become desensitized to seeing Paul Rudd being thirty fucking feet tall. People in nineteen ten would not be able to comprehend that that doesn't actually exist, and someone did it with one of them, their special picture box thing. It's just it's we take it for granted. But it's also been so heavily use that now anybody, if you have a good enough computer, you can make something look really good. I mean you and I talked about Skinner Rink, which uses a lot of practical effects but also CGI and special and in some special effects tricker.

But even then, like that movie was made on a fifteen thousand dollars budget and they have backed so right, but it's not as it's not as big of a deal anymore. But it's also so ubiquitous that it doesn't feel special, and it hasn't for a very long Yeah, and I think that's what made this one feel a little more special. Yeah, there's actually realness to it. And that's the board. Yeah, I mean that's copped directly from board.

I mean, that's that's the thing about this movie is like you said, it's it's the man who knew too little but then it but then he actually is a secret eight bight and like that. That's a novel concept. And that's why this movie was so successful. That is why this movie made so much money. It was the highest grossing film of twenty twelve when it came out, and it's the thirty sixth highest grossing Indian film of all time, which is a large list of you know, way down, but like thirty six a lot given how many in cinema films have come out overall time.

So this was a very successful movie. There is a reason why the Spy Universe came out of this, I will say, and I think I mentioned it at the top. They did not have a fucking clue that they were gonna do a spy universe, because the way this movie ends is like very quaint and they're off together in the wind pretty much just off in the sunset. Yeah, like, yeah, that's this is where this could end. There need they did there, Like, we haven't seen the next film, Tiger's Into High, and I'll be curious if that movie justifies its existence because this movie is a has a pretty satisfying and you know, they're on the run together and maybe one day when India and Pakistan don't need Issi and Ron anymore, Tiger and Zoya will come back to India or Pakistan respect Like that is a really nice good, feel good ending.

Yeah. Yeah, it totally could have been, like hell yeah, what else do you need? Right, Like, but then we have have Tiger's Into High and we have war and then we have Pathon So it's funny, like Pathan feels so far. Yeah in a way that again we talked like you mentioned in Pathan, Solomon Khan shows up playing Tiger with a scarf, showing up whoopin' ass, going for it, being charismatic, being really engaging, having a lot of good banter with SRK, to the point where they essentially close out the movie together. It's it feels like the same character, but it did not feel like this would have been the movie he should have been coming, right, Yeah, yeah, And I am still appreciating the like musical numbers that jump in when they do.

I think this just had like one maybe two during the movie itself and then one at the end. But looking at Solomon Khan, like he looks kind of beefy, you know, and almost moves kind of stiff, you know at times, but then once he starts dancing, it's like, oh wow, I mean you said it the other day, Like them, who's on this guy? Like I did not expect him to be able to move the way he could, and he's he's really good in those in those musical numbers, I think, yeah again. And then Katrina Keff really carry this movie together. Like, you know, I really like s RK and Kadol and I think that they're fantastic together.

I think they are believably cute together. But I as you know, I really like the a sexual tension between Katrina Kaef and Salmon Khan in the first half of the movie, and then when they kind of just give into it in the second half, they're really cute together. Yeah, you feel that they feel for each other, right, which, like, you know, it sounds like, oh, that's really easy to do. But like there are so many of those James Bond movies where he clearly has no fucking chemistry with the female league, like of like like A View to a Kill where Roger Moore is Tanya Roberts' grand font at that point. Yes, not saying not saying, you can't have a you know, Spring December Romance.

Salmon Khan is fifty seven and Katrina Capp is thirty nine, so they're practically twenty years apart. But he looks good for his age, is putting it mild just like SRK looks good for his right again, putting it mildly. Yeah. Something fun fact. And I don't know if you ran across this when getting ready to watch this movie or after watching this movie, but we've talked about SRK a little bit.

Apparently he was first approached for this movie, but because of a conflict with something else he was involved in, couldn't do it. I did see that, which out wild very funny. And the fact that they are now in the same universe and together on screen either yeah, yeah, and honestly, I mean, he probably would have done fine. But SRK what in twenty was it twenty twelve, twenty fifteen, twenty twelve, twelve, SRK in twenty twelve didn't look like SRK twenty twenty two. No, and he wouldn't have looked I mean, that's the thing, Like Pathon is a movie that exists very much in a time and a place, because that look is a desirable look.

Now, like Himbo I always I keep joking about him looking like a full on Hymbo Daddy, but he is the Himbo daddy of Himbo Daddy's in Pathon. He is so good looking. It's just it's hard to film. And yeah, if he had been in this movie, he would have had to play you know, a door a dope but then turns it on halfway through. Like I much prefer him just being a complete badass motherfucker throughout, Like I don't need, I don't need this softer side of him this way, because we do see a softer side of Pathon with him, you know, in the village in Afghanistan where he came from, Like there's a softer side to that character in that movie.

Yeah, but you see a lot deeper of a character complexity with Tiger in this. You really get a sense of who he is as a character. I'm not saying you don't with Pathon and SRK in that movie, but the character building is more important in this. That's more the focus of this movie because Pathon is action from the word go, Like this is only action for a about an hour of two and a half hour, and then it becomes kind of a romantic comedy for a bit, right, which is the most compelling part of this move. Yeah, it's so good And again like I'm I'm wanting more of that, and I know that we get more, and I'm sure we're going to get a whole boatload of it in Tiger three, which is coming out later this year, which again I'm so excited for and there's a high percentage chance that it will release here and we will be able to go see it.

I hope So. I hope so too, because I'm on board with this complete Like you couldn't convince me that this isn't going to be something that people Stateside will finally fucking take notice of. You can't convince me that's not gonna act. Oh yeah, if it's. If it's showing up at movie theaters in Lincoln, Nebraska, it's gonna start showing up elsewhere, and more people are gonna start and we're gonna we're gonna be Indian cinema hipsters.

We're gonna be like, you know, I liked it before you did? You know I liked it before. It's cool. We're so far ahead of that curve already that it's I don't think it's going to be anytime soon. I think this is I think these are two very big blips, these two things being Pathon and Triple R, which are like the two big things.

I'm like, Pathon's not even really getting mentioned as much as Triple R was. Like. Pathon is being mentioned, but it's also being mentioned in circles and places that I'm already looking and expecting it to be there. It's not being mentioned places that I wasn't expecting, which is what Triple R is getting. Triple R is getting people stumbling upon it on Netflix.

My hope is when Pathon eventually makes its way to Amazon Prime Video, which it's totally going to that it will be promoted as a thing that is worth watching even if you're not someone who's familiar at all who SRK well. And just to expand on this a little bit more, I have a coworker that I mentioned this podcast too and mentioned that we were we went and saw Pathon, and I think I think he said he went and listened to this to our Pathon podcast and then you say, they started hearing on NPR people talking about Pathon and he's like wow, He's like it must have been a good movie. It's like gotta go see it, dude. Yeah, and that and that's the thing. It's like you you can be ahead of the curve.

You can't and and and yeah, it's like ahead of the curve normally means like you see this and then you have nothing else for a while to watch, Like there's so many things you could be watching it between now and Tiger three coming out, if you're really invested in this stuff specifically or invested in your Brahmostra too. Like again, like there's so much stuff you could be watching in those in between times of Indian cinema that it's not like it's some barren Wasteland, Eka, Tiger and Pathan are good, but they're nowhere near the best Indian cinema. But they're really good and they're good examples of good Indian cinema action. Yeah, I still go to DDLJ. A is my favorite Indian cinema movie that I have seen, and that is a fucking romantic and it is not the kind of movie I would watch in a English language type film, and it's not a movie that I would ever contemplate as saying is one of my favorite movies, But it is one of my favorite movies d DLJ, and it is a Indian romantic.

Con Wow, I'm gonna have to watch that. You sold me it's three hours. Might take me a couple of days. It's I mean three hour romantic comedy is not something that you would be pitching to a Western not that's true, although I might be able to sell my wife on it. Right, you like romantic comedies?

Heeriod, You go, yeah, what are you doing for the next three hours? You're watching? This is what you're doing. You're watching d DLJ iced coffee in a blanket. Let's go.

And here's the funny thing. So Salmon Khan and s RK. We're Intahi together. No, he's really charming there. But it's really funny now to think about, like you said, where they ended up where we are now in twenty twenty three, where they're both you know again essentially leads of their own again if we're using Marvel equivalent Marvel Franchi.

Yeah, this is as big as a Marvel franchise in it and they didn't know it in twenty twelve. They know it after Pathon, Yeah, well, I mean they I think they knew it pretty quickly after this movie. I just don't think they knew the connect right right. They knew they were going to do something more with Ek the Tiger, but like, I think it was the next It feels like it was the next movie where they knew they were good because like it just like so, there's so nothing that would lead me to believe they knew where they were going with this. More and more of that lands on the ending.

The ending of this movie is so like definitive that it doesn't feel like they were like yes and there will be more, Like it feels like this was the end and that's the end of them m and like you know, yeah, now we have bathon like you said, so, yeah, we have scene that they are now together. This is a whole thing. We're gonna get more. There's gonna be more directions that they go and more people that they bring in and fucking probust maybe or you know Ron Beer Kapoor or again like who No, it could go anywhere, which leads me excited. Same.

So you don't know what it's gonna do, but I know it's gonna be awesome. Yeah. And now with the success of these kinds of movies, we're seeing movies that feature other mainstream Indian actor doing this, doing a big action movie like rajer Ni Kant who's literally like almost eighty years old, doing a He's a bad ass, gonna go kick some ass. Even even Selmon Khan has a movie coming out this year where he's got long hair and he's doing he's doing the John Wick thing like it. It's it's a popular storytelling trope now to do this, and I'm all here for it as long as it's as long as we're talking Indian cinema, maybe not in Western cinema, because like I feel like we're finally at the tail end of it, like John Wick is the Lone the Lone Gunman, the Final Stand like the Last Man Standing, because everything else kind of was just a clone of John Wick.

But like, I'm excited to see where that is taken in Indians because that's clearly the direction they're going, even with that SRK movie Joe Wan that's coming up, Like that looks just like a John Wick style movie with SRK. Right. Well, and like you said, with Western cinema, we've kind of had our heyday with that stuff, and it'll probably continue. But like the ramp Up, it's no longer ramping up. It's more Bob Odin Kerky isn't getting his own movie, Charlie's the Ron is not getting I don't think a sequel to Atomic Blonde.

Oh is that a sad point for you? Yeah, I was really bored by Atomic Blonde. Like, well, I mean again, I'm easily I'm an easily entertained person. I mean, hey, there needs a god, there needs to be a mix of people. Not everybody could be mister critical.

Well, and what what I just liked about it is that it was a different type of I guess action character, a different kind of John Wick. Yeah, yeah, I mean again, like the female one. I mean right, yeah, but then Jennifer Jennifer Garner did it too, right, didn't she with Butter Yeah, pepper Mint or whatever they like that. Yeah yeah, Like I mean again, like I don't know, so many of those movies just kind of came out and like and now in the cinemas having it's run at it, I'm all here for it, yeah, because john Wick is really it now, like john Wick is the only one left, Like john Wick four is coming out. But there's like I said, no Atomic blo on to, no Peppermint to know whatever that Bob Odenkirk movie was called.

Like, there's no sequels to those movies coming, but john Wick will probably continue to get movies until they're good and done and Keanu is finally finished. Like john Wick is Keanu's mission impossible. Yeah, and people just want him in the MCU anyway. So right, And that's the thing. I don't want any Indian actors in the MCU, you know why, because that's beneath and you talked about that with s r K, Like you know, yeah, he doesn't like he doesn't want Yeah, he wants to prop up Indian cinema and prop up in others there right, well, that's the thing.

It would for Western cinema, he would be propping it up in Indian cinema. He is one of the people that's holding it, you know, proudly on his shoulders to the point of at the end of Pathan where him and Salman Khan are And we didn't talk about this last time because again, like you know, this was them saying like we are still here. We're still the badasses of Indian cinema. We're still the ones paving the way, keeping the success, keeping the green rolling in. Who's gonna come in and do it?

Do it when we're not here anymore. No, young kids, it's gonna be us. We're gonna be the ones doing it. And like yeah, I yes, And you should not go work in the ends. Maybe some maybe some of the actors from Triple R, younger Indian actors going and doing that.

But do you want to be the prince in another kingdom or do you want to be the king of your own fucking castle, Because that's what you're asking someone might guess rk or Salmon Khan or Emir Khan to do. Go to the United States and be a second class citizen among those actors because you can't speak English as well as a native English speaker. Because that's ultimately s RK said it himself, like that's what it's gonna boil down. Yeah, he's gonna end up just playing the guy in the shwarma place, you know, right, Like look at what happened to jet Lee for sake. Jet Lee got the short end of the stick because they couldn't give him funny things to say, like the N word like Jackie Chan did in Rush, Like you know what I mean.

Like jet Lee just wasn't able to do the same thing Jackie Chan was. And so Jetley went back to China and on Kong and made movies and he has a fantastic career not working in Western cinema. And if I am an actor whose native language is not English and I am a big time actor in the cinema of my country to the point of being known as one of the three cons, yeah, I'm probably not going to go work in the cinema where the ability to speak English fluently is the only thing separating me from being me and somebody sleep. Well, there's huge populations people that watch movies in places other than the United States. India is three in between three and four times the size of the United States.

Like, yeah, they're good, they're good, and you know what, nobody should go and bother them about the MCU because that is beneath them. It really feels like, what about a Brahmustra MCU crossover. That's fine, that's fine, but again, like just to cast SRK in something and then have him be in that for five movies and take up his time away from other things like yeah, on like Juwan, like other movies that he's going to be in that are probably going to be much more interesting than most of the MCU movies we get. That would be a shame. That would be a shame.

Yeah, and that's I mean that's in that interview. That's exactly what he talks Just like I don't want to do that because that's what happens. You get roped into it and then it's like a whole say, signing contracts. Okay, what happened to Chris Evans, look at what happened to Robert Downey JUNR. They they got in, they made their money, and they got out, Like and you know what, right, Like I don't want to be in this anymore.

And you know what, in a lot of ways, like I know people might give me flak for this, but like good, good, put it in your rearview mirror, because I don't know what what what future do you have in the MCU really Like it's just it's just a money fact. Yeah, it's like the wwe like that? There? What future did there? There is a ceiling in the mc even if you're making Robert Downey Junior money, which nobody can anymore because he made that, because he literally is one of three reasons the MCU exists the way it does.

Yeah, you're you're not going to ever be the man in the MCU. There was There is only one person who's the man in the MCU. There is no one who's dumb man in the MCU right now. That was Robert Downey Junior. That's why the MCU feels so rudderless is because you don't have those big personalities the way you use And that's why this feels so fun and novel and fresh is because these are the big personalities here doing that in Indians, it's capturing that magic that im you originally had.

Here we are with it with the spy Verse, and you know what, I hope it doesn't overstay. It's welcome, because I would contend, and I'm sure you would agree. If the MCU had ended an endgame, baby, I would have been, Yeah, what a fucking cap to that whole thing. Just put a ball on it, and then you want to restart, you want to go somewhere else, don't come back to this universe ever again, it's done. It'll continue on in perpetuitum doing whatever.

But we don't need to check back in because their story of the major threat that they had to deal with is, oh, just kidding, let's gild the lily, baby, and let's fuck it through it it Loki actually got away and he's gonna ruin everything, and Gang and that and Galactus and blah, and it's like so fucking Thanos was nothing. Then, like let squeeze more juice out of this, or it would be almost like Disney had an entire backlog of movies from twentieth Century Fox that they could go and do things with and re release or farm out to boutique labels, but they would not give a singular shit about doing that, because it's not Marvel and it doesn't print money like it's going out of style. That's a shame because again, like we said, this is so much more exciting that it actually bums me out more people aren't excited about things like Eck the Tiger three or Pathan two or whatever the movie is where hopefully the third leg of this tripod gets introduced, and again we haven't seen war yet, so maybe it's Tiger Shrof and we just haven't seen it.

But it feels like they need the one more big name, which again in my opinion, would have to be a mere con So that would be cool. That's where I want this to be. That's probably where Aditya Chapra and you know, Josh Raj Films want that to go. Is to be the biggest thing, bigger than Brostra and you know what it has the opportunity to be. And the fact that they have two of these that are actually both compelling, that is something that American audiences should be jealous of because we have nothing other than MCU Star Wars below and Star Wars is not connected in the way that this Star Wars is all just one thing, Like it's just all one thing.

What about the DCEU what you wet about it exact? What what would you like for me to say that hasn't already been said? It's gone, It's over, isn't it pretty much? I mean, isn't Shazam the only movie that exists now? I think so?

I mean, aren't they still like hinting at another flash movie but it won't be Ezra Miller cool? Probably? I felt like that's the thing. Like even even the like the false starts that we've seen, like the Dark Universe, the the the Universal Monsters thing that never happened, Universal called their shot like we we never like nothing came of that. Like I was so excited for that because for me as someone who's a huge fan of horror, like I know you are, like, we don't what horror we have the conjuring universe, but like it's even there.

They like barely can connect anything because the movies that they do connect, the movies that come out of the connections aren't great. So yeah, they have two solid connected universes already, which is something that Western audiences. If that's a thing you're into, which a lot of people it is, you should be interested in and taking note of and involving yourself and and checking out because what a surprise. This movie is on Prime accessible, borrow your friend's password, check it out. Yeah, because Netflix, Netflix is changing the passwords, baby, Amazon Prime is so Dustin final thoughts on Eck the Tiger, I mean, just to echo kind of what we've been saying.

It's got a lot that you're going to like. And even if, like you're not a round campaign, you're going to have the action, You're going to have kind of the whole uh espionage aspect of it that's in there, because even while he's in that romantic comedy aspect, he's still a spy trying to get information on this professor. Uh and uh So anyway, I think it's fun, it's got action, it's got stuff that you and the significant other can watch. You know, if you're into two different things, it's gonna have both things, and it's a good way to spend a couple hours. I totally agree.

I you know, again, I didn't know what we were going to get ourselves into after Pathon, because we watched the trailer for this movie same night. We watched the trailer for Pathon and we were like, what is what is this movie? And then what if that. Yeah, it was a great way to like see how this universe started, right, And and I enjoyed this movie a lot. Again, I have kind of my issues with it, just kind of feeling very samey with the second half, because again, Born the Bourne movies ended up being such big influencers on so many other pieces of media that we would end up seeing here like Batman, like James Bond, and everything became very boring and not fun and dour and serious and gritty, and it's like, oh fuck, we can't have fun anymore with movies, right, because that's a whole like this This movie kind of leans on that a little bit, and that doesn't resonate with me action wise the way other things do.

But it still had a sense of fun to it, and it didn't completely drop the kind of slap sticky action stuff that we're so kind of used to with something like Jackie Chan, but it still had that kind of comedic action which I appreciated. But ultimately, it's about Salmon Kan and Katrina Keff and they're both fantastic, and this movie benefits from how good they are together and someone saying, all right, we've got the two of them what can we do with them that we haven't done before. It's make them secret agent. And you know what, it works. This movie really works.

This movie's a lot of fun, super enjoyable. It's just an It's just a good movie that by the end of it, you're like, eh, I could leave it here and not watch anymore, or I'm super invested and want to see whatever comes. And that is something that is so rare, where it's just a movie that stands on its own and there doesn't need to be anything else. I don't need to see eight other things to appreciate this movie, and I don't need to watch five more things afterwards to have this recontextualized in a way that makes sense. And now I understand it.

It's like this movie stands alone, but it does stand as the beginning of a bigger narrative that is now very successful in the scope of Indian Yeah. So I think the next time you and I do one of these, Uh, I don't know what we're gonna do. I guess we're gonna do Tigers into High. Yeah, well, we'll watch the Tiger movie. That seems more just like an action movie, seems more like kind of I'm a little concerned that it's gonna be a lot of what the second half of this movie was and not a lot of fun.

I hope that's not the case. I'm god it could. It could be that there's a distinct possibility because the trailer looked very action oriented and action folk. Yeah, I guess we'll see way to find out, right, you're gonna have to listen to the next episode. Until then, you can find Dustin and I over it weirdywaymedia dot com, where him and I talk about Indian cinema quite a bit, and you know, we talk about culture cast stuff non Indian cinema movies.

Sometimes we talk about Jeff Daniels killing spiders the first time we ever did, and it will forever lodged in my brain. So until then, you can find this show at Bollywood cinemaclub dot com on all social media. But just like rate review, wherever you get the show that helps us find an audience and tell your friends go watch Indian Cinema because if you're not watching it, why are you listening to the show.