Ishq

We're in wait. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club, where we take a look at Indian cinema once every other week. I am the host of the Culture Cast, Chris Stash you, and I'm joined by my good friend. You can find her here every now and then. You've been on this a couple of times.

Big fan of Amir Khan, head of the United States branch of the Amu R. Khan Fan Club. Over at Mondo, Heather, you can find her writing and doing all kinds of interesting stuff. You're a friend in mine, Heather Drained. Hello, and I hope everybody has their Amir Khan al tars thready and a good Amir Khan to you as well.

But Amir Khan. Yeah, it's it's kind of been a running theme here with you and I doing Bollywood cinema stuff that we're talking about Amir Khan movies. And this episode is no different because on this episode we're gonna be talking about nineteen ninety sevens Indra Kumar directed isk So. The film is directed by Indra Kumar. The film is roughly translated to mean love and POI.

You couldn't figure out that figure that up by watching the movie, well, I don't if you don't know what ish means by the end of the movie, I feel like you weren't paying attention because they say it a lot in like half of the songs. And the film is all about Aj Devgan and Amir Khan as Aj and Raja, essentially using their real names frankly uh A, two friends who get to kind of mix up in a love triangle love square featuring Kajal playing Kajal and Juhi Chahua playing Madou, and then their fathers get involved, Jay's father and Juhi's father, and yeah, it's it's there's a lot going on. And if you can't tell this movie is well, it's not complicated, but there's a lot. It's two hours and forty eight minutes and I probably haven't even done the plot of the movie any real justice.

But I'm sure we're going to talk about it. But Heather, you hadn't seen this. I hadn't seen this, So I want to turn the floor over to you and tell me what you think a little bit about ish well is now? When when you had pitched this to me, like we we both watched the trailer together and it looked suitably kywacky, nutty, lots of energy, and I think that was the reason, right, Like, that's why we picked it. Because it looked weird.

It looks very weird and demanded and fun and it had a beer Khan and which that's like three quarters of it right there, You're not wrong. What's excited. I will give everybody heads up. There are like other movies called ish, so look for this one. We're trying to watch this one.

Look for a mere Cohn and I believe this one came out nineteen ninety seven and it's on YouTube. The link to the movie is in the podcast description because it's not only on YouTube, it's on YouTube with correct American subtitles, which is fantastic. So it does not always end. No, not only does it not always happen. When it happens like this, it makes everybody's life easier.

You the listener for being able to find in us, because if it's hard for us to find it, it's not going to be an easier for you to find it, so which I think is like Ghulam in a Nutshell more or less that was far hard to find. This one is just readily available. So that I am not allergic to a mere Cohn, but I am allergic to the convoluted plot of this movie, and more actually more accurately, because the film opens with the whole thing with the Fathers being super rich, and they they not only have a distaste for lower class, which in their world, I think everybody who's not rich is poor. Like it's literally if you're not rich, you're a beggar, like disgustingly rich. Yeah, and they are like almost cartoonishly horrible.

Yeah, that's a nice and I that for me, that hurt a lot of this film was anything with the Fathers, because I don't know, maybe it's my inner class warfare, maybe it's my my proletariat side. That's just like, you know, like damn, I'm I'm I don't want to see the one percent or the equivalent, you know, get anything other than a massive like seth Rawlins style curb stump to the dumb with I get I get it. I'm I'm I'm right there with you, obviously. And there's a lot, there's a lot. These dads are terrible and and just when you think there's redemption, it gets even worse.

And we'll get to that I'm sure a little bit. Oh yeah, it's way worse Ian. I mean she's like, this is oh, it's so much Now. I will say there is a middle section of this film that is so weird and get so off the rails that I kind of like did a little bit of a turnaround and I was like, you know what, I'm kind of looking this movie. Then it got back to the dads and I was like, ah, but that the cast playing the young lovers, all four of them are are really great.

I think I love I mean Cottons, like he has really good chemistry with with actually both aj who's his you know, his rich friend, as well as his love interest with Madu because initially they hate each other, which just me think of when we talked about actually, yeah, yeah, but the MATHI was a better movie. Thought it was a buch better movie. But but this one has it does have some I think things I didn't enjoy about it, and uh and uh and the friendship did you have us feel like though, like the male friends were kind of more in love with each other they I mean, seriously, you know, I think what's funny about this movie is, as someone who's now seen similar of this kind of movie before. It's weird to me, how weird this movie seems to me, even having seen other movies in Indian cinema like this one, because like you just mentioned, not only are the leads like having a weird the male leads have this weird chemistry together that, like you said, it is kind of homo erotic in a way, like unintentional or intentional however you want to perceive it, but that their relationship is rather close.

It's weird because this movie is definitely serious in a lot of spots, but yet it's trying to be funny. It's trying to be fun and fun me it's so tonally confused. It makes Muthu look like it knew what it was doing. Oh my god, yeah, no, right it did, but like Mutu was, so it's such a gleeful movie. It's such a light other than that one weird bit of tonal whip last switch we talked about on that episode, but for the most part, Muthu is kind of consistently just nutty and fun and and uh but also like the characters that the bad guys in that we're not with them a time like we're with Muthu A time, and that helps.

Like I think the dads get way too much. And also they go to fucking ridiculous awful like I mean, like they should be in prison. Did you forget that these people you're doing these things too are one of them is your children? Like your children? Yeah, it's yeah.

I mean that's the problem with this movie that I kind of by the end of it was experiencing, was it feels like there's two movies here, odds with each other. There's the story of a j and Raja and Kajol and Madhu and that like the love kind of triangle rectangle square, however you want to interpret it. And then the story of two fathers who are trying to prevent their families from falling apart best they can believe and tell. And it would make sense if the characters that were and the antagonists that we're doing things to, the protagonists weren't related to them, I would totally understand the links that they're going to. But the fact that these are these kids as parents, at least half of them, that's their parents.

It's insane to me the links that they go to because they almost kill their own kids multiple times. Yes, what is even the point here then if you're willing to kill your own kid, what is even the point of what you're trying to do then trying to prevent them from marrying someone you don't want them to, because it's full crux here is the two rich dads want their son and daughter to get married, and they fall in love with other people. It's Midsummer's Night stream, right. I mean, there's a little bit of it's this Shakespearean thing again that we kind of talked about last time, where it's everything feels very grand and connected and it's it's here too, but all the stuff around it is really tonally strange, almost to the point of harming the movie overall.

Frankly, yes, and and I mean especially because with the filmy is so long, because like it's like the first sort of big dastardly thing the dads do is they're like talk with the lawyer, who are basically, you know, suggest to them, well you could get them to sign this marriage like certificate, but basically act like, oh, here's the property I'm want to sign off to you, right yeah, and they and they're like, oh, I bet they won't pay attention. Now you do have like the character of the uncle on the the dads. This is how I kept the dad characters differentiated in my head. What a mom was Lex Luthor? Yes, because that's a deleaped He'll yeah, who looks hilarious.

Frankly, he looks that mustache. I love it when the poort At one point, this poor guy uses his head to strike him hand. I like that guy and the other guy I refer to as shouty man because he looks he's very loud, and I loved it one of your granted, how did you go with one of your CON's character and like dresses up as his friend's dad, Like, oh, yeah, it's pretty great, but it's like his him shouting his title. I was, so, I'm your cons such a treasure and uh but uh but yeah, so I meant the bad enough. You're already you're you're knowingly hoodwinking your children.

You're grown adult children. Yep. In some marriage, especially in a culture where I'm assuming divorce is probably not highly looked upon. Like I don't know that. I don't know that about any culture.

Is that, Like I the the level of how conservative Indian culture is, I would assume that it's not necessarily something that people are going out and doing all the time, right, I mean, I know what happens, right, I don't, you know, because I'm as simbing is partially just because I feel like if it was as common as it is here, the movie would just be like, Oh cool, I'll marry her and it'll we'll divorce a month later, you know what I mean. Like, But then again, I'm applying logic to and that's maybe amer that's my yeah, because there are there are things that happened in this movie that happened without logic, almost entirely. And there's a whole act of this movie that involves a j and Madu thinking that Kajal and Raja Amir Khan are having sex with each other and had a baby and then had it aborted.

Like all that's what she meant, I wondered, because she's like, oh, are you having another baby? And I was like another baby? Like why did you did? I? Miss?

I didn't know what she meant by the other yeah, because they're like, oh, oh, she must have been pregnant. It's what's what's fucking insane about this movie. As you have these two dads who go to the ends of the earth to prevent their son and or daughter from marrying someone that's quote lower class unquote, But the lengths that they go to are like, that is not the way real human beings treat one another. If your family, and it's and what's and what's hard to really kind of reconcile what this movie is. By the end of the movie, ostensibly all the characters forgive one another, and I don't know how they could.

That's oh god, right, because like that's the emotional climax of the movie as they they all forgive one another. And I'm thinking to myself, if I were in that scenario or even writing this script, why why are you giving them any amount of redemption when they've done nothing to deserve it. And that's probably my biggest complaint with this entire movie, as it feels like it doesn't understand its own steakes. It like sets these grandiose steaks and then by the end of it goes, well, I wasn't really that big of a deal they were able to forgive their fathers in the end of thing. I would never, ever in a million years, forgive my father who tried to kill me, not once, not twice, but seemingly three goddamn time to the point where he's trying to get the woman that I'm in love with.

Rate like, that's what was going on. Like even if it was ostensibly fake, still what it looked like, still what she assumed was going on. It's just fucking insane. Well, and especially because it's late, like you, I mean you mentioning the steaks. I think it's the best way to put it, because if you're going to be a comedy then then honestly they should have just left the big mystique to be the marriage paper.

Don't don't have people getting almost killed or certainly borderline raped, or you know, on top of that, having because this the whole thing is poor Rossell. It's sorry, I was thinking of a beer con. That's why I said always always Yeah, but yeah, it's like her reputation and it, you know, it's just like completely crapped on. It's like, oh, she's not a clean girl and and like her uncle taxi driver guy is bribed to lie at this party, you know. And that's the worst thing is she like they frame it all with like somebody took pictures of I'm your Cohn of Raja comforting her after she's been almost raped and beaten and terrified, and they're not making it out like he's literally you could tell like he's just like, oh, you know, comforting this poor woman who's terrifying.

The most amazing, the most amazing stills. They just took stills from filming the movie and used it as slides. It was amazing. They're like perfectly shot pictures from by her tangles like what they had multiple sitting Yeah, oh you didn't notice and hear all those clicking noises and balls? Yeah right, I know.

Well and gott it developed that fast in an error before digital. Yeah. It's so funny because they're like, oh, yeah, we've want to show you these slides, like let us show you these slides of all these terrible things. And instead of a j believing his friend, like you know, you would he believe it obviously. It's just it's so unrealistically written.

It's well, like if your friend at your wedding is you know, shows up late and he tells you, hey, we ran into some trouble because your dad tried to stop us from getting here something you know your dad's already trying to do, and you believe him. He him telling you while they were off in cahoots fucking and that's why they're not here, and they were going to have an abortion, guess, and he just believes everybody else but his own friend. Like that, to me is almost a unforgivable writing sin. It's so lazy and so contrived. It's like, that's the best term to use for this movie is beyond contrived.

Not necessarily a bad thing, because I think the movie It's the End, understands that it's kind of getting into the contrived like land, but it really should have just gone all out from the get go and not second guest itself. I think if it had just really embrace how over the top it's trying to be, instead of trying to ground it in reality while being over the top, I think the tonal inconsistencies in the movie may have kind of just melted away, because instead of having to try and reground the movie every twenty minutes, they could just say, well, everything is insane and fantastical realism and who cares. Like it's a big love story about four friends who keep getting the world involved in their problems, and the world keeps involving itself like that's the story and make it feel that way.

Make it less the Fathers and more the world, you know, large, which can be fueled by the Fathers, but don't make it so grounded in reality, I think is the best way of footing it. Like it feels like it's trying to be real but over the top at the same time. Yeah. Well, and that whole ladder section just really really for me, hampered the movie hard because at least because everything up to then there wasn't consistencies, but it wasn't. It was at least based out where there'd be, you know, something really funny and crazy.

Okay that the Dad suck, but then it'd be back to being kind of funny. And I will say so I don't sound like a total negative Nancy. I'm my favorite. I have a lot of favorite things from this movie. As much as I as I didn't care for the whole thing, the whole thing with the statue where there's this whole thing in the mall where this this I guess the shop clerk has sculpted the statue of like an aphrodite type in honor of some weird rich guy.

I don't it was a quit clear on his title, right, and but in Aj accidentally breaks it and then puts it back together, but he puts it where it's her frontal legs her ass is now where vagina should be. Yeah, and then everything else is normal. So she looks to like the scendens faceballs where they started scratching it. So, but what cracks you up is the guy gets the other rich guy and he's like just as brilliant, but then still tries to have the guy killed. But you notice how the statue now has the ass like somebody sculpted it to all stick together.

Yeah, like like that was stupid, but it made me laugh. And when they the you know one, the one bad guy, one of the many many bad guys, where somehow, through the advantageous action of I believe it was cause y'all, that kind of tipped over a lake candle, it sets his scrutch on fire, and then he he stocked on the crowd of they start stopping his scrutch and they're like, oh, everybody, everybody, there's like thirty cuts stopped. He got that. Shit's funny. They will never not be funny to watch stopped on a guy's wiener.

This is my ugly American side coming out. I don't know you could baby blame effected. I saw a lot of America's funny some video as a child, somebody getting they're growing, somped, they're hit or whatever. It's it's funny. I can't help it.

I don't write any It's funny in any language. That's why they're doing it in this movie. Oh yo, the funniest thing that you can do actually is covering yourself in lighter fluid and trying to light yourself on fire. It's such a weird movie, Like there's some things that happened in this movie that feel like they're from another movie, like Cajole. I'm just gonna call our Cajole because the movie barely put it.

In the effort to give her character a different name, they switched one letter in her If they know who this is, she was in DDLJ and Couch Couch, Hold to Lie and K three G What to give her her name? It just called him a mere in the movie. Frankly, she tries to kill herself by lighting herself on fire at one point, like what are we watching? What is this? What?

What? What are you trying to tell? Us. Here is the question, because I'm just confused. I mean, the same movie that has a guy getting a fire his dick set on fire and then stomped out by thirty people.

It's the same movie that has this poor depressed woman who's so depressed that she has to go to the hospital because it's affecting her physically. Yeah, and then tries to kill herself. It's the same it as dick stomping and a statue with a booty. How also there's this whole which this stunt work and it's very excited. We talked about terrifying stunt work, and when we recorded the episode for Gulam, I think this actually terrified me.

More is when they're when yeah, when Aj sees his you know, the girl he's falling in love with Kaal, and it's she's at the building that's only connected you by these this pipes off, Like how high do you think that was? I'll think at least twelve stories? Yeah, so high. You wouldn't catch me doing that. Oh, oh my god.

I didn't even like watching it. I remind me of gul Remember in Gulam, where a mere khan is climbing on the outside of the building in that movie, like look what, oh, hey, by the way, let's just kill our It's like because American walks out onto this thing. I don't again, I don't know how they were doing this. I mean, I'm assuming a lot of it's just close shots and then you know, far shots with stuff doubles. I'm assuming, but they do a good enough job editing it together.

I can't see the strings. Let's just put it that way. Well, I mean, honestly, there's one shot from like a bottom kind of slanted angle and it looks like a j It looks like that actor very well could have been I mean again, a Meer Khan was doing his own stunt single, so I mean, and it didn't look like I feel like they were doing enough camera angles to be like, see, we don't have anything to crush you like a good lon You guys, remember when a mere Khan was racing against that trade just is dangerous here. We don't care. It's all for the shot.

It's it's for the movie. And then they have this handy man who is like a gore. It's all the like he's handicapped, but he's handicapped on such a level that doesn't exist in reality right where he's like, yeah, like I can't do it, but you look, yeah, and and of course that's who you wanted. Its presenting us for an hour, just taking that noise at whatever, Which is that the drinking out of sucking a jug with three x's on it. Look look, look, look, look, but that's the that's that's not what that noise is.

That is not what that noise is. That's the Southern version though, Chris and I you probably you've had some family reunions with those those jugs. That movie would be kallishki. That movie would be ki. That would be called that boring.

It's like, you know what, I gotta of him credit for really putting a Mirkhan and a j Devkin through the ringer because even if they were doing their that stunt, I couldn't tell. So I'm with you, like probably they were realistically like if a mir Khan was willing to run at that train, can't it would stand to reason he's probably willing to go and walk out onto this I guess like tube pipe was connecting buildings like it's it's very thin. Fair part of making that noise. I'm just over and over again for five minutes, just him making noises. Oh my god, no.

And you know this is the thing is enough people are like, oh, Tom Cruise doesn't stunse, which is impressive. Listen, I'm not gonna take anything from Tom Cruise because he's doing stuff I wouldn't want to do. Unless I was paid as much as him that I would be like, well, I've got that insurance money. But AnyWho, But I mean, I'm sorry you watched these Indian films. Hold hold my beer.

I don't drink, but hold my water because like, hold shit, that's suntwork. Like if you mess up, you're dead. There's like you're gonna get injured. Like if they had fallen off of that well, let's like you mentioned on the It's like you mentioned in the Ghulam episode with Jackie Chahan, right, like, yeah, he was doing all kinds of stuff, and some of the most innocuous looking things were the most dangerous, like when he almost died I think jumping from the tree to the wall and one of those Operation Condor movies. He's like almost died from what was seemingly like a very kind of innocuous stunt that he was doing.

So when they're in between buildings with again seemingly no safety I can't like eat Injra Kumar does a good enough job of convincing us as the audience that there were no safety harnesses or wires. I've got to believe that there was. I've got to believe there was. But it's weird, like this is not the kind of movie that would necessitate or even require kind to scene. No, it's weird.

It's the payoff for it felt like it came straight out of an early eighties like sex comedy for me, where they crashed into a woman's bathroom a land in her top, except you know, little more conserber culture. She's like cloth in the bathtub, like she's work a full body suit and like a like a wrap like a gum or a sorry problem. It's yeah, when it's wet and clinging to your body, it kind of doesn't matter what it is right that isn't And that to me felt, I mean just straight like out of an early which isn't. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just but it goes to show you just this film if it was like EKG meter, it would be like huge valleys, huge peaks. You need to be on some medicine maybe to even out your blood pressure a little bit.

But if you're evening out, doesn't mean that the movie's flatlining. Oh, that's an excellent point. And that's a thing like you know, I guess for me, I was trying to think of because again, like why do I do this show? Right? I do this show because I believe, as I'm sure you do now having watched a fair amount of these movies with me, that this is a area of cinema that is ripe for Western against a specifically American appreciation.

And I was trying to think, like, what is a movie that Westerners would be able to look at and say, Okay, this movie is like that movie? And I can't think of anything off the top of my head other than maybe some of these like more recent Katherine Heigel, Gerard Butler, Ashton Kutcher, Cameron Diaz, action movie, comedy, romance movies, because again, like the characters are in love in the movie, so that's a big part of it, and that's really the driving force behind the movie, as the relationships between the characters. But they keep getting themselves into these wacky situations. So but again it's like not an action movie, but it is because the scene that you're talking about, what the guy getting is Dick stomped on a meer Khan kills him?

Does he not? Like? Right? Does Amer Khan kill this man later? Oh god, it's a pitch work.

Yeah, it's like, so now we have like eighties slasher site kills. Right, it's so, it's strange, it's nunny. And Aj gets stamped with a rake the same pitchfork, but he, I guess it doesn't go in deep enough to let's make a shot. A shot at what point? I mean, remember that there's a point where they're walking through the lobby of a hotel.

This is earlier on in that scene, trying to get away from these guys that have been hired to kill them, and they just start shooting in a crowd of people and shoot a random by stander and the guy's just like, my arm got hit with a bullet. That's weird. Yeah, no shit, what the fuck? What? They have them the best blatantly Australian tourists.

I'm surprised I didn't say, oh crikey, did Danyo eat y'all? Bay? Yeah? It's so wide old listeners. It's so wild to me because the movie, again I understand what the movie is going for, and again having seen something like Muthu, I think it kind of gives you probably a better idea of what this movie is kind of trying to do.

But I think if you were a Westerner approaching this for the first time, this movie would feel like whiplash. It really because it even felt like whiplash I think for the two of us, but maybe not as much as it would if I hadn't seen other kinds of Indian cinema. That again, it's just a matter of fact, is what it feels like. It doesn't feel like it needs to tie itself down to genre conventions, which I do appreciate about Indian cinema. It doesn't feel like it has to be a horror movie, it has to be an action movie, it has to be a romantic comedy.

Like it can kind of just do wherever the fuck it wants. And in a way that's confusing for me as a Westerner, But at the same time, it feels freeing that you can kind of just do whatever the fuck you want and people are going to respond positively because this movie immensely successful, third highest grossing film of nineteen ninety seven when it came out. So well, you know why, because there is there is one sequence that I well, there's two, but of the musical numbers, there's one called mister Lover Lover. Yeah, an I that that was my favorite. That was great.

That's the uncle, which I guess. Of course this is according to IMDb, mileage is obviously going to vary. But that role was originally supposed to be Amata, which I like, I don't sure, I guess. Like Johnny Leever is a well known Indian comedian. He's in Kuch Kuchta High, playing a similar character that he plays in this movie.

I think. Again, Kuch Kuchota High, I think is a much better movie, but it's also doing something different. There's no action beats in that movie. But I couldn't see Amy tab in that role. I don't know, Like it feels like he's too big of an actor to be that small of a character in this kind of movie.

Well, especially because it sounds like he wasn't. It wasn't like, oh, we're gonna have him played the uncle, like the mister lovet Over guy was going to be a separate character that comes out and gets the couples united as opposed to the uncle, which I think is we don't need any more extra charace. All of a sudden there's a third character art here for someone else. I mean, unless unless that character has a flamethrower and goes after were both parents. I mean that's I mean, that's to me, it's it's it's a dicey thing when you have you know, like and there's plenty of movies where villains.

I love a great villain. I think we all say yeah, and you know, but the villain has to have some kind of charisma, even if they're doing despicable thing. There has to be something where you don't mind. If that's you're even some part of he's like, oh, I don't mind. As I love spending fifth character because yes they're terrible, but they're fascinating or they're peeling and somehow like I mean, this is not a good movie, but Ellen Rickman and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves is by far the best part of that movie, and not just because he's Alan Rickman, but he just hams it up and is such a great villain and and it helps that everything around him is milt TOAs right, right, he really stands out.

He stands out, but I mean but he would even if they were better, like if there was a better robin Hood, like because it's like he he Alan Rickman's the kind of guy that could play a villain where even if the villain's doing some some messy I mean, he puches a worse, tries to sectually assault Babe Marian, and a really tacky camera angle that haunts me to this day. So thank you movie for that. But you still love him. You know, the dads are just and the actors it's not the actor's fault. I mean the actors I think are doing what they're expected to do, but they're so fucking off and not funny awful.

I mean, the shouty dad could be a little but even he it's like they are so horrible. And I think, especially for Americans, were you know, we've I think we've become more and more aware now that one person's always been triple in this country. I'm not when his people like, oh everything got went to ship after like twenty sixteen. No, no, dot be naive. Read a book every like it's long history of people with money doing horrible things for hundreds about thousands of years.

But you know, it's like these guys are so bad and not in a fun way. And I don't know, I don't know if that's maybe me though, where it's just like class issues do hit hard for me, and seeing like people get hurt and oppressed because of this bullshit, this poison that kind of has hurt so many in this world, I just can't It's not a whole lot of fun to see the real life. It's not a lot of fun when it's happening in real life, right, Yes, maybe I guess that's it because it's you know, because I'm trying to press it. Because there's plenty of movies where the bad guys, you know, where there's a realism to it. But I still like the movie The Incident, yeah, from late sixties with Martin Sheen and Tony Massante's a brilliant movie.

Yeah, Moussante is he's pure magnetism in it, and his character is horrible and says atrocious things, but you're pulled to him because he's like a shark. But maybe it helps that The Incident is this gritty kind of almost noir tone, black and white film as opposed to this big budget, colorful movie with Dick Stomps. And at one point we have I'm Your callin dressed up as a ghoul cranking, you know, which was awesome. Oh my god, I completely forgot about that scene. You forget with monster teeth I was living.

You know why I forgot because it feels like it's from another movie and it almost has no point being in this to the point where, like the to the point where the kind of reveal that it's all a gag. If it had never been revealed that it was a gag, a completely different, more successful movie than this one might have been all of a sudden, it's just a vampire movie. Like okay, like maybe why not? Like why not at this point when this movie is kind of all over the place as it is. Anyways, they put a horse, They put a horror segment in this movie, and then they backed out of it because it wouldn't make any sense in the context of the movie.

But that scene from intense and purpose, this is like a five minute detour into the land of horror. Hey, I like to think that somehow they knew hears down the line, there would be a redheaded lady and Arkansas is for heather drain. Yes, and it's like, we know what you want, baby, you want Oh you want a Mirkhn with some vampi in a little devil cat statue with glowing red eyes. And I'm like, yes, yes that too. How did you?

How do you look into my soul and know what I need? Movie? But then they gave me more of the one percent winning and I was like like, not, havn't it well? And I don't. I don't know if a mere Khan has been in a horror movie before an Indian cinema, so I think he was in a film called Talash from twenty twelve.

But I don't like, I searched a mere Khn horror movie and you know, nothing comes up. So that's kind of interesting. This is as close as a mirror con may have ever gotten to being in a horror movie. Somebody needs to change that. And you know, Chris, I don't know if you're thinking what I'm thinking, but I'm thinking socially in this era where people love cross pollinating big you know, I hate the term franchise films, but for lack of a better term properties, and you take a meer con and you put them in the subspecies universe.

So got with radio gold baby, You'll be learning gold plated diapers with us this time. I mean to be fair, I feel like a mere Cohn would work in a vampire story, right, like, yeah, yes. And I'm not just saying that because if I had any like fan art talent, I would have a I'd have ava an oddlinked um blur out called American as Dracula dot com, dash tumbler whatever, das amercon dot com. Yeah, that's little heart eyes. But and it's really well done, that little section two.

It's like got every beat down, the lighting, the music, and everything's been so weird up to that point that I was like, oh, I was ready to roll with it. I'm like, sure, well, And it sets a weird precedent for the rest of the movie where some of the other things that take place in the movie. Later in the film, I find myself wondering like is this actually happening or is somebody like trying to mess with the other person, Like when Kjol tries to fight herself on fire, I was thinking, like, is she like trying to scare him? The way he's scared her and mad do It's like, no, this is for real. So it's like it at times the movie feels like it's at odds with itself, but it does interesting things that I want to see, So it hurts the movie.

Like that scene with a mere Cohn where he's a vampire hurts the movie because it's from a completely different movie, and it just further pads out the two hour and forty eight run time in the movie. It further elongates how long this movie is. It's just it kind of hurts the movie because I kind of want to see more of that and less of what we ended up getting. I would like to see a mere con horror movie now, Like that's something I would like to see. Yeah, that's not what this is though.

That's the problem. Like the movie does such a good job at showing us some other things, then it goes back to the thing. This is not that interesting, this story of two fathers who are just unrepentant assholes of the highest order. It's just that's less interesting than almost everything else the movie is doing right well. And I think especially because you know, after the whole thing of aj almost dying, you know, his father seems to have repentance, and it's and you can buy a sea.

Yeah, now that's to get to that, because you know, and then I could believe. I'm like, well, you know, it's it's easy to take life, you know, for granted, until you were somebody you love, you know, is in a bad, perilous kind of situation where you're like, oh shit, you know, my actions could have very horrible, fatalistic consequences, and yeah, so I was willing to roll with that. I'm like, Okay, there's redemption. You know, I think everybody in life and real life, I think everybody's at least got a little tiny grain of sand and good in them, so more than ice. But you know, I think redemption is always possible for the most part.

But so, but then to have the whole like thing with the you know, the not blackmail but where they're trying to frame it at the wedding shower, what's equivalent to that is it's just like what the fuck? And it's like and then the rest of it is just so awful. It's just like good people suffering the movie, which doesn't fit in with the rest of the movie. I almost think they should have just had it be like, Okay, AJ's in the hospital, he almost dies, his father feels bad, you know, Lex Luthor, it goes off whatever he right, you know he's pissed. Cool, go ahead, go have fun being a being a butthole of not having your daughter in your life.

You don't deserve her, that's gonna Maybe the ending I would have wanted is both the fathers just for the kids to be like you know what being a father beings more than just you know, happened to be genetically tied to me. A real parent doesn't act like this, A real does not treat me like this. And cyanaras suckers and then they and then you know, mister lover lover Man comes down and marries them in a group ceremony and then I'm your cons of vampire. And that's how it ends. It's a better movie for it, right well, And that's the thing I mean, the third act of this movie is bizarre because that's when Kajol tries to kill herself.

That's when a Jay and mad who show up and they're like talking to them and they're really like dragging Cajol and American over the coals. They're like what are you, like, well, yeah, having another abortion? Are you fucking her again? And it's like, what, why do you believe the people in your life that are so clearly up to no good that they're willing to ruin your wedding to prove a point like again? Like that for me, I think is the big takeaway for this movie is the characters are not written realistically, but they're in a movie where the expectation is realism, but then it's not, but then it's not.

And that's the problem. Like the movie doesn't know what it wants to be at all. I think it wants to be at times a funny look at the way people interact with each other and the way this group and age range of people are interacting with each other in the late nineties and Indian culture in the late nineties, and the expectations between parents and kids, Like that's an interesting thing to talk about. They talk about it in DDLJ, they talk about it in K three G, they talk about in Kuch Kuchota Hi. And this movie has nothing to add to the conversation.

All it says is, well, yeah, your parents are bad, but I guess they're gonna forgive them in the end. And that's the thing, Like this movie has an opportunity to really at the end to say, nah, fuck this, it's not okay. Like you said, the movie should have taken a stance and it said, the movie just goes no, no, no, no, you're gonna forgive your parents in the end. Either way, it's like that is that's toxic. And the movie really kind of standing at the end of the movie and being like, yeah, see they're gonna forgive everybody.

It's like, uh no, no, no, no, no, Like the wrong message movie, wrong message in nineteen ninety seven, twenty twenty three, withstanding nineteen ninety seven, what message are you sending by saying, well, if your parents tried to literally kill you, I guess you should still forgive them. I don't think so. Yeah, now there's a there's a huge oceans of difference between relatives and family. Yeah and yeah, And plessly I kept thinking there was gonna be like more of a downfall because you have like the scene near the beginning with the Shouty Man with Runjeet Rye a k a. Shouty Man, Shouty Man where his brother or no, no, it's with Lex Luthor his actual brother comes by and it forms him that his daughter has gotten married, and he's like, oh, why didn't you tell me?

And he finds out that his niece married the son of their driver, and he is disgusting. He literally says, if my daughter ever married beneath her or married a poor I would shoot her. He literally says I would shoot her, and his brother gets rightfully pissed at him because his brother's not a bunghole and says, basically, just remember everything in life has a downfall. The sun turns into the moon yeo, and has all these other great metaphors. And then and I did love this moment.

This actor was so good with this line where he says, make God bless you and he's saying it, and the most I did, I'm not blessing you. You better be praying to God when your downfall comes, because it's gonna come hard. And I was like, Oh, it's like a check off skun thing, like he's gonna end up like losing his money because he's boastful and prideful, yo. And it never happened, Like how was he punished that? The other thing is neither one of the fathers I was filmed it to have like almost because it don't even opens with like a voiceover narration like you would associate almost with like and I kind of use this with muth do you almost like a fairy tale, right, like something more fanciful, something more you know, good versus evil kind of tone?

And how are how is evil bought in the movie? It's not, it's not And it's welcome back in with open arms, is what it feels like, which is it just undercuts the entire emotional core of the movie that the movie ends with our two leads or I guess four leads forgiving everyone involved explicitly it does. It doesn't work like it it hurts the movie in the last when the movie has an opportunity to really take a stay end of the movie, it just nope, nope, no, just don't. It's not that it doesn't care or that it doesn't have the ability to address the situation that it put itself in. It just chooses not to, is what it feels like.

It just decides that I guess it is okay that this happened and that we all learned a lesson. In the end, it's like that this is a different movie. In d d l J, Amrishpoori plays Kajol's father and he is just not wanting her to throw her life away on someone that he doesn't approve of, but he never tries to kill her because she is, you know, going against his wishes. And that is such a huge jump, man as a grand canyon leap, to go from I'm your parent and I don't approve of what you're doing to I'm your parent and you're gonna die for it? Like what that is?

That's such a giant leap that the movie treats so lightly that again, it's the other contemporary films that this movie was coming out with Kochkuchota, Hi Kay three g DDLJ. It's telling the same story that those movies aren't. Parents and kids at odds with one another about their lifestyle, choices and expectations. This movie just goes, what's the next logical step? They're actually literally trying to kill one another.

But that's just it doesn't work when it's told this way. It just doesn't. And maybe it would have worked better if there hadn't been four people on screen. I don't know. It's it feels like the issue with this movie is what the movie is trying to show us, not how it does it.

Like the movie, I think is perfectly fine. It's a well made movie. I just think the movie's ideas and mashing as are so misguided that it ultimately feels just like a real strange mix of things that does not really ever come together as a singular, unified It just feels like a bunch of disparate parts jammed into two and two hours and forty eight minutes worth of a run time. Yeah. Well, and the things to this, like, I mean, there are movies that can have kind of a cynical ending where you know, because I mean it's not to sound it's super negative, but I mean a lot of times in real life people, there are people that get away with horrible stuff, and they're usually ninety nine.

I'm usually you know, in a position of power, whether it's financial power or you know, an authority job position, whatever it. You know. But films that have that kind of like cynical sort of big ugliness about them, have that that kind of dark vein all throughout it, right, you kind of need to like it's kind of it's it's really I'm not gonna say it's a possible, but it's really hard to pull off something very funny, almost surreal at times with how crazy the anti cat and then all of a sudden it's like, by the way, the evil people that almost got one girl rape, almost killed their kids, you know, almost had you know, his daughters, her one true love shipped off the Nigeria against his will after he was beaten, you know, almost to death and a jail cell.

Like they're fine. It's you know, because they're her fathers and you love your No, you don't. Not if that's your father, you don't. Nobody has to love their parents, and their parents are terrible, and that's a that's a fact. That's our PSA here on the BCC.

But but yeah, but no, I mean, you know, I will say, like, I think you're right. I think it is a well made movie. You could definitely do a lot worse, and and we all have done a lot worse than this movie. I know I have. But in the cast I do.

I did love the four leads. I think all four of them were great because it's the first time I've seen three out of four of these acts, because I don't think I've seen the other three in other films because I'm still very much, you know, getting my feet wet in this in this world, which is awesome and I really appreciate it. Chris, of course you're welcome. And h and highly and I can't wait, even like when we're watching something that's not you know, like a plus plus. I mean, why should anybody expect that?

Like any type of film at all, whatever country it's from, genre, it's a journey. You know. Some roads are gonna be bumpy, some are gonna be smoothed, Some are gonna lead you to a perfect vacation spot. Others are going to be a motel six that has a crack pipe underneath the bed. Everything's different, and that's part of the fun of taking any kind of and H and yeah.

I mean you get to see four leads that are charismatic. They do have great chemistry with each other, and there's some good musical numbers. I will say. The first one we see is with a really beautiful young lady that never shows up in the movie. What's up with that?

What was it named? Laylah? Yeah, I mean she's just I assume she's just she is an actress in a model and she's a cameo. Why not. I mean she's gorgeous.

Yeah, it's like when Mike and I did China Gate. The the actress who is dancing is on the cover of the box. Movie has nothing to do with her. She shows up in one scene and I was like, wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. This movie is not that.

But you know, I like the musical numbers. I like the wood where Amir Khan is wearing that orange suit and walking around. I guess that's the mister Lover Lover one. That's the same way he looks hilarious in that orange sea walking her. Oh and also, this is the what the third a Meer Khan movie you and I talked about at least where we see him working out.

Oh well it is a mere Khan that's not in That a complaint. And but you know what's funny this movie. I would contend that Amir Khan is second lead to a Jay Devgan, like right, like, he's not the main character. He's the sidekick in this movie. And Aja is great, Like I really I enjoyed him.

He's got This is a total superficial note. I really liked his hair. He has a great screen it's great screen presence. He does that. He's very likable too, Like that's the that's the thing too, because you think, like, oh god, are the rich kid's gonna be kind of obnoxious and it's like, no, like Madus Madu's kind of bratty.

But she's, you know, until this latter part of the film, it's are really good friends. Like she's really sweet to her friend doesn't obviously isn't concerned about the whole class perception things like her father. Neither one of them are, yeah, like it doesn't even enter their minds and uh, which is nice. And no, the musical numbers are great. I think mister lover lover man that that that actor even you know, and I agree.

I love Amy Top and I'm looking forward to seeing more stuff with Amy Top in it. But the actor playing the like the uncle or brother in law doing that with a little like leather jacket. That dude has some moves like he looks like, you know, you look at him, you're not gonna think this guy can dance. But man, he can dance. He can get it.

Yeah, he can one hundred percent get it. I I really appreciate, you know, anytime we watch these movies and we get some really well choreographed, well thought out musical numbers. Not a requirement, mind you, but anytime they're well done, I always appreciate it, and it doesn't feel like the movie is cramming it in there where it doesn't need to be. This The musical numbers I think work in this movie completely. I think they're in some respects, maybe even the best parts of the movie frankly, because again, like you can see the amount of time and effort that went into the choreography and just the musical numbers in general, and a new Malik does a great job I think with composing all of the songs, Like you said, the mister Lover Lover, I think it's the standout song I would think out of out of all of them, I love it.

It's really and it's one of those you know it's a good song when it's still in your head and you're not mad about it, right, Yeah, I agree, Yeah, It's it's interesting, like this is very much a movie that is writing the line between a film like Doom, which is Amy Tobb's son playing a cop chasing after eight but also there's like a love story with his partner and another woman, it's kind of there, but then it's more a romantic movie. Like this movie wants to be an action movie. I really think it does, because it feels like at times it's really trying to do something more with the rom com genre than than just a battle of words between the characters as opposed to a battle of actual physical aggression, because most rom coms you don't have characters coming to actual blows.

It's normally just verbal, you know, verbal disagreements. So the fact that they kind of take it to that next step, it just I just don't think it really works because the movie didn't prepare us or itself for that tone shift, and it never really it never really internalizes that it's done something different that it can't undo. It has made this movie into an action movie at some point, and then it tries to back off of that and it doesn't work. It needs to have fully committed to it, because it feels like it wants to, and I don't think it wouldn't have been successful if it had, because some of the scenes in the movie that are more action oriented, like when the guy is getting his dick stomped, or that whole chase through the alleys it's rather interesting.

It just feels so tonally strained, and the stakes are just so elevated all of a sudden, Like, you know, again, someone screaming at someone is a lot different than someone pointing a gun at someone and saying, I'm gonna fucking shoot you in the head. Someone yelling at you is not going to kill you, but someone shooting you in the head, damn sure will. So you can't put those next to each other and say these are equal. There you have to understand like one is obviously a lot more drastic than the other. I just feel like the movie gets gets lost in trying to I guess it doesn't feel like it's ignoring it.

It just doesn't want us to care that it's doing it. But you're going to because especially you're seeing horrible things happen to characters that you've spent a lot of time with and that are likable, characters that are you know, people you know, you're you know, yeah, you want good things to happen to them, and it's okay to kind of have some suffering happen because you know that's life. But like, I mean, I just it's like, how do you go from a statue with a but that's facing the front to police brutality, then having your characters forgive the characters that tried to murder them throughout them. Yeah, that I think is the unforgivable sin of the movie for me is the way the movie treats the story it takes us on.

In the end, it just goes, you know, the story we're telling you ultimately doesn't matter, Like nobody learned anything, is what. It kind of feels like, like what did they learn because they didn't learn that their parents were terrible, which is what they should have learned given that their parents were literally trying to kill them. So weird signaling from the movie is kind of it's kind of more what I'm getting at. The movie just doesn't know what it wants to say, even though it's clearly has something to say. Yeah, so, so would you say that your final feeling of is is ish.

Yeah, it's all right. I think you, like you said, you could do better for two hours and forty eight minutes, But in the middle of the road, it's it's it's better, it's it's more successful than it is not. But I don't think it's it's as successful as it thinks it is. Yeah, I agree, that's that's beautifully put. Uh.

Yeah, suck on that Ebert. Now, yeah, he's dead. I'm sorry, I'm on it down. Sorry, sorry, he's he's dead. No remark.

Oh yeah, I feel I feel terrible now and only, but I won't feel terrible if that means I get pranked by a mere colin. That's fair. And hey, you know what, if anything, uh this movie seemingly led to uh A J. Devgan and Kjel getting married two years later, so and they've been married ever since. So there you go.

That's as sweet. Yea. If anything from this film, even if it's got issues, true love absolutely blamed from it, and I think that's I think that's awesome and both of them are great. I definitely looking forward to seeing some movies with the rest of this cast, because yeah, I lights, I lights all the main actors. Yeah, Amer, I mean as good as a Mere Khan is.

Like I think A. J. Devkin really steals the show. And I haven't seen him in anything else either. He was in Triple R and like an extended cameo, but I have not seen him in anything, so I'm with you.

I'm kind of excited. To maybe go watch a movie where he is just the laite and it's he's not having to share it with a mere kan because again, like you're sharing the screen with a meer kN like good luck so I in nineteen ninety seven Amir Khan is very different than twenty twenty three Amir Khan. But he was a rising star then, so it's not like people didn't know his value. I just don't think anybody thought, well, he's going to be ostensibly one of the biggest movie stars in the world, so that ends up being his ceiling. I just don't know if anybody knew that's what his ceiling was, if even I guess he even has a ceiling.

Frankly, so when you're being widely regarded as the most well one of the most well known Indian stars, like that's not a ceiling, Like that's just that's just a mere Khan exactly. He's in absolutely stratosphere of universal stardom, yeah, which is not like they're I'm not even sure that there are American actors that have the same international appeal that a mere Khan does. Like I don't know if there are people in China that are super in India that are super into Tom Cruise the way people in China are into a mere khn. So yeah, I mean, nobody's using any of our actors as like diplomatic influencers. No, unless you're Sean Penn and then you're just doing it yourself and everybody's like, Sean, would you like go away?

What it cares? You're part of the problem. I mean, well, why doesn't like leave? So so yeah, I guess, Heather, I guess we've kind of given our final thoughts on Ish already. So you know it's on YouTube, go check it out.

It's free. Most Indian cinema on YouTube's free. This just happens to have subtitles, which again that is few and far between, but much appreciated obviously, Oh greatly greatly appreciate. Can we can we give some just bighearted love to whoever put the sceptles? Yeah it, thank you sir or ma'am or they we love you.

Yeah. So well, until the next time you join me on the Bollywood Cinema Club, Heather, where can people find you and your body board? Well you can find me of course at my website Monoheather dot com, as well as my Twitter and Instagram and Facebook under at Mondo Heather and I have a Patreon and it's gonna shock you. It's also under at Mondo Heather Shocking. I never would have guessed shocks.

As for this show, Bollywood Cinema Club dot com is where you can find this show. But Weirdingway Media dot com is where you can go to find all the episodes of the Bollywood Cinema Club, the Culture Cast, Noise Junkies, the show that Heather and Father Malone and HPR on together. So that's where you can go to find all of that stuff, including this show. So yeah, rate, review and like on iTunes. Leave us a positive rating.

If you enjoy it, tell your friends, to tell your family, tell everybody. Go watch Indian Cinema. That's the goal here. Listen to the show and watch Indian Cinema because even if these movies are weird, they're still entertaining. There's still a fun you know, to two and a half hour romp.

Absolutely, I think, I think if you love cinem mine, if you're listening to us talk about it, clearly you do and you're one of us, so welcome. Yeah, please, yeah, check it out. Because even even even the worst film that Chris and I've talked about. Wasn't the worst film? Or is it?

Like I guess what do we end? Let's end this episode on that question, like is where does is this? Is this better or worse thing? Because I think Gulam is the one that neither one of us were completely on board with. Is this better or worse than Ghulam?

I'm torn? I think Gulam tonally, I think it's more consistently well made. It hangs together more as like a unified idea. But the parts that I did enjoy about Ish, I think I enjoyed more than the parts I enjoyed about Gulam, if that makes any sense, I agree, I agree, even I would say that the music in Ghulam was better that Condala song I think is more stuck in my head than mister LoVa LoVa is. But I think Ish has higher highs than Gulab's highs.

It has much lower lows, I think, But I think the highs are so high that I can kind of overlook the lows, which you know, ultimately two hours and forty eight minutes that other that Ghulam is more or less the same length, So you're kind of you're kind of right there either way, so right, well, And that's the thing is, I think people get so used to just seeing, like binging the same old stuff that's familiar to them. But you know, it's like food. If you eat the same thing every day, you're gonna get bored and it's not going to be the best thing for your spirit or your body. Right, So, you know, watch some Ballywood and not just Triple Ore, though I do need to see it. It sounds amazing.

It is there's a full universe hear of Indian cinema. I mean, I'm just barely getting my toes in the water given how much stuff is that there. And I'm already loving this journey so much. So please, you know, do so. Life is short, make it make it fun, make it interesting, make it eard and we'll catch on the next episode.