K3G

We're in. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club. I am the host of the Culture Cast, Chris Stashue. On every episode of the Bollywood Cinema Club, we take a look at a Bollywood movie, or better, an Indian cinema film. On this episode of the Bollywood Cinema Club, I am joined by two good friends of mine all the way from the Scary Stories We Tell podcasts.

One of the co hosts over there, Jess Buyered, Hello, and also, I would say more or less from Scary Stories We Tell, though you can hear their body of work over on the weirding Way Media podcast network and over at Dolan Museum dot com. They're a pretty cool dude, Maggie Bead. Oh wait, thank you, Hey guys. So there is kind of a more underlying theme outside of the fact that the three of us are friends. The three of us are on the most downloaded episode of the Culture Cast, which was on an Indian cinema film that I think is I mean, obviously, it's one of the more popular, if not one of the most popular Indian cinemas ever made.

D D l J featuring oh you know, just half of the cast of this moon. So I figured, at some point, you know, Jess and I are eventually going to circle back around to two point zero, the Enthron sequel for this show, because we talked about Robo or Enthron on the Culture cast. But I figured, why not get the three of us together to talk about the second spiritual sequel to DDLJ because Couchkutahi came in between these two movies, and it's kind of it's just DDLJ again in a lot of ways. I don't know how else to explain it other than SRK gets married to I want to say it's Ronnie Mukherjee, who plays the chick at the beginning of this movie. They get married, they have a kid, the kid, the she dies, and then he goes and falls back in love with Kajel, the actress from DDLJ.

The actress from this movie that he falls in love with. Sound kind of like DDLJ. Yeah, it kind of, which brings us to this movie. K three g otherwise known as Kabby Cushy Kaby Gum, otherwise known as sometimes Happiness, sometimes Sadness. It is the second spiritual sequel to DDLJ, primarily because it has SRK kjel H.

It also has Ji Bakchon and I don't want to Farta Farita Jalal as well. I mean there's there's, there's plenty of There are plenty of returning faces from D D LJ in this movie and from Couchkucho to High, along with the injection of some other big names including Karina Kapoor, Kritik Roshan and obviously Big B himself am tab Bachchan as the patriarch of the Chan family. And the film is about the Raichon family, including Yash played by Ami tab bak Chan and Jaya Bakchan playing Nandia Chandraichan his wife. They have one adopted son played by SRK who plays Rahul, and one biological son, Rohan played by Riti Roshan. And wouldn't you know what SRK gets in trouble by falling in love with Kajul who plays Anjuli, a a lower socio economic group, ordinary girl.

Yeah but uh yeah, simple, I mean again, she she's of again the castes and doesn't exist in two thousand and one. But but that's kind of what they're playing on here, is it different? Different socioeconomic levels? And SRK falls in love with Kagel and they get married against the will of his father, and wouldn't you know it, he gets essentially excommunicated from the family. We jump forward and the younger brother played by now played by Riffi Roshan, goes to London to find his brother and his sister in law and bring them back because well, their parents are getting older and he wants to bring He sees it as his mission to bring the family back together.

So yeah, that's a pretty long setup this movie is. This movie is three and a half hours long, which I think we're going to have things to say about that. As much as I'm sure the three of us may have liked this movie, but Maggie, I'm going to give the floor to you. None of us had seen this film before watching it for this, So tell me a little bit about your thoughts on KKKG or k three G probably the easily for us to cause so we don't have to say KAKKG, which is doesn't sound great. Yeah, especially for us Western audience.

Yeah, primarily for the Western audience and almost no one else. So man, I mean, honestly, I'm always tickled that Indian cinema leans so heavily onto musicals, because I will say that's probably my favorite part about this movie, especially when it's hard not to like do the compare contrast thing with DDL, because I especially when they say it's a spiritual successor I think it's more like a sister film or something like that. It's it's almost like equal opposites. I did get a little misty eyed because I do feel for like the parental figures, not the abandoning part necessarily, but my mom's currently going through a phase where it's like, ah, I wish we could have like Christmases with everybody again.

It's like Jesus, I'm gonna die so so sad. But I mean the music is still really good in this three and a half is a stretch, but I don't think it was out landishly so there's definitely a parts they could have trimmed, like a good chunk of the fat. I think it does meander a bit, and boy, there's only so many times I can see the oh this person backwards thumb jab in an entire movie like that happens so off and you can almost make a drinking game, or every time a fan appears to blow and their hair has to be perfect, Chess, I don't. I don't know what you're expect. These are good looking people looking good all the time.

I mean that is true. That is a fact. That is that is a selling point of these uh Indian romantic comedies. It's I mean, look, it's it's it's no different than our rom coms, right, I would wager the folks in these movies they look perfect, even more so than the ones in our movies too, I mean, well, and do the fat shaming too. Amazing how that works.

My favorite character too, I have to say, wrong, it was rooted for because of course it's like showdest priest, let them stay separated? Ro oh, what the hell do you have to give these people? He's he wants to bring them back together. So, so, Jess, tell me a little bit about your thoughts on K three. G Ah, yeah, I mean I so it's funny because I don't really care for Western rom coms, like In the Slightest and I think I think, now that I've watched a couple of Indian rom com I've realized why.

It's that Western rom coms take themselves too seriously throughout the entire movie and in in these like the cheesiest and hamminess of it feels no like they know what they're doing. They're putting on this show. And I appreciate that they're audio stingers. When characters are talking, they they get it like they're not They're not doing that in American cinema. That audio stinger thing is so not a thing that has any place like at least in our contemporary American cinema.

Right, So, yeah, I enjoyed this film. I'll admit that, like the first hour and a hat drag really really long, and I was getting to a point where I'm like, oh man, am I not like I want to like this movie? I do? Because I do. I did.

Obviously. I liked D D. L J. And I liked the actors that are in that and in this one a lot, and it did finally pick up, I think after we hit the time jump, which made it a bit more entertaining for me after a while. But yeah, I would have trimmed a fair amount of this movie down because it is the plot.

I mean, is what it is, what we've what we've discussed, and it's not something that needs to be drug out as long as it is, and perhaps that's coming from Western sensibilities. But even the you know, I really liked the musical aspects of it too. I didn't love everything about these specific musical act as much as I did in DDLJ. I could have definitely done without a few of the ones that were in this, but yeah, I mean it was it's interest. It's just interesting to me that I will sit through a three and a half hour Andy and rom com, but I'm not gonna sit through a ninety minute American rom com without someone like man dating I do, or unless it had like a specific actor in it, right, like some of those nineties ones with like Bill Pullman and Sandy be and stuff.

I'm kind of more on board because those are like campy and cheesy and very not the serious that you're talking about, which kind of you know, that is a thing that has become more prevalent now with rom coms is they just don't they're not they don't want to be funny now, which is strange because like I remember, I mean, my family was big on like the really goofy Western rom coms like I don't know, fifty First Dates and ship where it could kind of strike a bit of a balance where it's it's like this kind of does in a better manner at that point, because it's you do have the big, serious, like emotional scenes and they seem to translate really well, especially side by side with the comedic stuff.

It's a different type of comedy, but it still flows really well. And I know sometimes that is contributed to the amount of time that we're exposed to these characters. So it's kind of a winsome lose sum because you have to have like really succinct writing and understanding of your characters to get away with a ninety minute script that can accomplish the same thing. It's just hard to strike that balance. Yeah, yeah, you definitely get You definitely do spend a lot more time with these characters and end up therefore end up feeling a bit more connection to them, just like if you're watching a TV show or something that's extended period of time where you're you're actually with these characters versus a ninety minute very formulae, we have to hit the heavy debt.

This beat have to be good if you're going to try and do both, because it's really hard to do both well. And I mean again to that point, I think I've said this before multiple times on this show. Now, I always feel like in most of these films, even the ones I haven't been the biggest fan of, by the end of the movie, these are fully formed, fully realized characters. And again, like you mentioned, Jess, you spend so much time with them that you can't help but really get invested in them. And I think that, you know, I was thinking about it as I was watching this, you know, this film, and there's something about this film that feels oddly Shakespearean in a way, Like the story, you know, that's this kind of grand story of the one son leaves and then he leaves with his wife and her daughter or her sister and then oh, you know they his younger brother meets the sister later in life and they don't know each other, and they and he knows.

It's it just feels very grand, right, It's this whole grand interconnectivity of just these characters, not in the grand scheme of the world. I mean, these are just one family in India. There's there's no world mistakes here. That all being said, like I think for me, DDLJ, I obviously still the movie that resonates more with me just to get that out of the way. Yeah, and and and it it has, it has the better music, acts, it has I think I think it has a better overall approach to the storytelling, but it doesn't really.

It has an emotional core, but the emotional core is really centered around you know, SRK and Cagel and then Ompori's character of the father and the and the mother character. In this movie, they have to spread it out more and I appreciate that because they do land it. I mean, it's not that they don't land it, it's just like we've already kind of mentioned, it's three and a half hours long. They have so much ground that they need to cover. And I think, you know rightfully, so I think it's too much ground.

I think there are something there's there's probably a half an hour on both acts of the movie or kind of the early the pre time jump and post time jump. There's probably half an hour of each of those that they could take out and take about an hour outa you know, and like you mentioned, Maggie, there are some some of the acts and this some of the musical numbers in this film aren't very memorable. But all that aside, I mean I caught myself crying at the end of this movie. Obviously, I mean, you know, like it's it. It strikes to an emotional core of something different than DDLJ.

This is you know, this story really is about the relationship between bothers and sons more primarily than anything else. I mean, and that's you know, again, none of us are Indian, but we have our own western kind of constructs of familial relations and expectations. But absolutely, you know, obviously it's it's you know, well known. I grew up with plenty of kids in high school who were from Southeast Asia or from India, and some of their parents have stricter expectations from them, both you know, ethnic expectations regarding who they can marry, they can't marry, all kinds of stuff. So that's the one thing that I personally can't understand about this movie any more than any of us really can, because that's not the culture we grew up in.

But I think, even in spite of the kind of specific cultural aspect of the movie that we can't directly appreciate, I think the movie's message is broad enough and well executed enough that I'm with you. Jess it's three and a half hours, but I watched the whole thing in one sitting. You know I didn't. I didn't walk away at any point and come back and do something else. Three and a half hours is a big ask, it can be.

I mean, I'm an opera nerd, and I like the classics like Lawrence of Arabia with an intermission slapped in the middle, So the time restraint doesn't necessarily affect me too much, but normally, like that's normally reserved for like epic story, Like is this an epic story? That's my question. Like that's why I said, like it feels Shakespearean in a way, so kind of grandiose exactly gonna be my point as you just said it was Shakespearean. It definitely echoes and it's kind of archival and that and the thing that I appreciate about this movie as opposed to DDL is that there isn't a specific villain. It's more of a clash of perspective and understanding.

And that's the whole movie is trying to get everybody on the same page, whether it's essentially through what would have been a complete stranger if you know, Ron didn't you pose as a stranger, right, So, I mean I do like that. With did All, it's there's kind of like the just the villain trope where it's like you have to kind of beat the boss level and he did and it was amazing and everybody was friends again. But with this one, it wrestles with those complex emotions of you love this person even though they aren't fitting the expectations and respect that you had on them, and kind of to move past that and understand that it is their life and you can still exist in it. To that facet, I mean, that's what it struck me.

And I really do like that well, and I and I'm I'm I'm with you, you know. I think that's kind of why this works. I mean, it works in my line just as well as DDLJ. But it doesn't have and it's not I don't know, I feel like it just gets wrapped up in its own narrative and kind of just giving you more of the characters and more. I don't know, like I feel like, yeah, it's it's just I mean, more isn't necessarily always better, And I feel like that is the like earlier takeaway for me, just when you watch the movie as a whole, It just it doesn't you don't need all of the stuff early on, It just feels like a lot.

Yeah, and it does feel a bit repetant throughout as we like kind of like we we do spend you know, a lot of time with these characters. I do like all of these characters, you know, for better or worse. Like, yes, they're flawed, but ultimately most everybody comes out pretty reasonable at you know, understanding of each other, which is what you would want to see of a story like this dealing with, you know, such a tight knit family group that you know, you don't want to see them not work it out at the end. But I think throughout it just feels like we kind of re learn the same things over and over about certain characters. And it's not you know, necessarily not entertaining and how we do, but it seems unnecessary and kind of drags everything out longer than it too.

Also, I never need that London montage ever again in my life. Well, I mean that's the thing. It's some of the stuff just feels like an excessive choice, just like we need some establishing shots of London or I would contend it's probably one a one musical number too many. Yeah, there were a few that could have been cut short at the very least. Raining.

Then I wanted to ask about that, is this is two thousand and one, It's raining men came out in the what mid eighties? Yeah, but what I'm guessing is it's two thousand and one. It's London, I get, and you know, disco didn't die around there like and did year and still in clubs and stuff like that. I'm sure that it was like a hit mix at some point in time later on Disco doing Not for You. It's just it's just so funny that song came out in seventy nine.

Yeah, I just it's the first time I watched the movie. I just remember she goes you know, it's rain, and man, I was like, whoa this what? Hold on? It's also it's also kind of fun to see, you know, you know, we we've mentioned speaking as Westerners, it's fun to see how other countries view Westerners and how they put them together and what pop culture references are the ones that they choose to go. Yeah, well that that wouldn't have been the one that I would have thought that they would go with.

No, right, Yeah, but Jesse, you mentioned you know some of the characters, so obviously you know this is the way to describe this movie to someone who is a Westerner who maybe doesn't know the scope of the actors like Ami Tab and shah Rukhan and Kajol and Thick Roshan. That's like Brad Pitt and George Clooney and then Brad Pitt and George Clooney all like clone them twice. That's the Yeah, it's it's like, it's the equivalent. It's it's the equivalent of having having like your biggest male and female actors in the industry in your movie, right. Yeah, it's all your top top hotest of hot celebrities of the time.

Yeah, who also happened to be very talented actors. It's not just you know someone who's who's just you know, they're famous for being famous. I mean, you know, Ami Tab in this movie is the He's one half of the emotional core of the movie. Yeah. I would say between him and SRK, I mean, you know, I think my favorite character in the movie, and I think my favorite performance in the movie is Prithick Roshan as Rohan because he's such a charismatic actor.

Yeah, every day time, and he and I don't know he everything about his performance is just so it's interesting that he's the second act's main character because he's not in the first act of the movie. And I think the first act of the movie suffers for not having him in it. Yeah, absolutely immensely. Like nothing against the actor who plays the young version of the character. But when you actually get Prithique Roshan on screen up against you know, SRK and Kajol and you know the whole who who is he?

But they don't know? I think that that works really well because again you get to see some unintentional and intentional comedy, comedy coming from the script. But also just two actors one I mean again, he's still they're both still working. Of course they are, I would say, two really fantastic actors, not even in their prime. Just two of the biggest names in Indian cinema working opposite one another, one of them very early on in his career too, no joke, right, But it's I don't know everything about this movie.

Again, it's it has all the right parts. I just I wish they had been a little bit more judicious with the scope of what the expectations were for the story that they were telling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they try and cover a lot of ground, and I mean, for the most part, I think it translates well. It's just I was kind of baffled considering DDL had so many like pristine like transitions into the musical numbers, it seems like this one it was a bit clunkier. Yeah, they just kind of there wasn't a lot of flow to get you to them.

They all just kind of started and you're like, all right, Yeah, there were some cleaver sequences within the music numbers that had a lot of charisma detailed to it, But I can't get over the fucking piano scene in dd that was so like the lead in was great, the action during carried the story. Some of these it was more of like the whoa, We're happy party songs as opposed to moving the plot forward songs, which they still have an abundance of. It's just the ones kind of dragged the other game. So I'm talking, and I think that's kind of what I mean about the repetitiveness, where it's like, yeah, the music you said that it clicked, and I'm like, yeah, the musical sequences in ddl seemed to move the plot along a lot for Aaron, a lot more fun than the way this London and just kind of the musical sequencety move the thing forward and just kind of re established what we kind of already got that was already happened scene.

It's kind of why I hate Pagliacci as an opera, especially during like the show scene, because everybody's going, guess what's going on. We're going to start the show. They're starting the show. Everybody they're starting the show, and it gets it gets really got it. Uh well.

And you know, if if you think about the music from d d l J, there are no repeat tracks in DDLJ through throughout this movie. There is the the cobby cushy cobby gum music that comes back over and over. But that's what what y'all, I know exactly what y'all are talking about. There are there is the there's the there's the Leather Act, there's the Leather I don't know what other to call the song where they're singing in leather, which yeah, that I think for me, the best song in the movie is the I think it's probably the the the act that they put on at the beginning, the say Chava Chava at the at the party because A it's Ami tab singing and dancing and he's so goddamn charismatic. You give him anything to do and he will nail it.

But it also in core prates more or less the entire cast other than you know, the two the two actors who come back later. Yes, which is pretty rough considering that it's like within the first forty five minutes of the movie. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think frankly, my biggest you know issue other than the length of the movie really does kind of cut to the storytelling mechanic that they use with the time jump. I mean, that is why the movie is three hours long.

It's because they have a before and after time jump, and they're roughly I guess the before is like an hour and then the after is like two and a half. Yeah, right, Yeah, I think I think it might even be like a little bit like an hour and a half for the first half, because that felt pretty I don't remember it felt like the first Like I said, for me, the first half is what drug on the most, and the second half is more where the meat was. Yeah, so the pre time jump is one hour and forty minutes of three and a half hour. Yeah, so that's a lot. That's even that's even more now, that's that's that needed to be probably only an hour or only forty five minutes, Like, I don't know.

If it had been forty five minutes to an hour, I think that this would have been a much tighter, faster paced, because like, for what this movie wants to do and like how you said it, so it feels like it is grand. It does feel in part like a hero's journey, and it just doesn't have the momentum constant you know that you need, Yeah, because kind of propel that forward. Well it wants to be it does. It has that energy, and everybody in the cast has that energy. But the you have to hit the beats faster or otherwise it's gonna be really lanky blow.

Yeah. Well, so so the first hour and forty minutes, I think the three of us would agree, that's SRK and Cadgules right, yes. And then the second half of the movie it theoretically, well not even the next half of the movie, I guess you could say the second act it is horrific. Roshan and Karina Kapoor's movie. And then the third act is Everybody's movie together, Yeah, like after like that, after the sad sad happens.

Yeah. Yeah, So I would say that my favorite act in the movie is probably the second act. I'm just not a huge fan of the first act of this movie. Well, yeah, they could have done a couple of things differently. The one thing I would miss from the first act would be that number that's about right on that and it hadn't been every where they like kind of showcase the dynamics.

If they just had that as the opening past thing and just jammed a couple extra things in, I think that would have been succinct, right, Like leave everybody up in your first part, you know who needs to be linked up that's going to continue on later. Yeah, Like you know, I get it with the kids bullying Rohan everybody body true, but that like those bits, But the kids did also seem to drag out a bit, like you could have just done why introduce that girl? Connected the families? But but then yeah, right, yeah, that first the first act is a lot. It's just it goes on and on and on.

I mean, it's not terrible, terrible it's just now and I get I get why, you know, I get the because ultimately, what we're leading up to here is you know, a big family disconnection that ultimately does cost you know, costs one of the main characters pretty heavily in in while being disconnected from them. So we're we're leading up to this big you know, re reunion between them, this understanding of you know, like the title says, sometimes sometimes sadness something like, that's how it is with families. And ultimately that's this entire movie. And so I get wanting to spend a lot more time with the family to I really invest everyone into the family so that when it does break apart, for the time that it breaks apart, it's a lot more heavy and it does you know that like it did.

It did hit me too, Like when that finally happened, even though I was like, can we get this first act over with, let's go. When he gets you know, disowned, it's like it's like, oh my god, that's like one of the most like the harshest ways of saying I'm disappointed in you I have ever heard, and I no one wants to hear the I'm disappointed. Please be mad, don't be disappointed. You know, the scenes between Ami tab and SRK in this movie are just heartwrenching, and you know it's they're intense. Yeah, it's you know, it's it's a masterclass in two actors who are who have the biggest actors of all time on the planet frankly, and they're in a room together and they're just delivering these emotional haymakers into each other and not stopping, and it is you know, the scene, like you mentioned Jess about it almost two hours into the movie where the entire relationship falls apart, is a really interesting setup for what we end up getting at the end of the movie and kind of the payoff, right, because that's the setup and there the payoff at the end, But it's they're just so emotionally charged that they're really hard to watch.

They all it's like seeing a family fight happening, Like, yeah, y'alla thought well, and especially considering the level of like the adopted son didn't know he was adopted, and then he gets hit with this giant brick of like a you are legitis own and we can do that because you weren't actually my real son. And it's just kind of really, Oh, it's so harsh, it's bad. Yeah, and for you know, I really want to hate his dad in that, ah Man, because for what? For all, because he wants to or did marry a girl whose family I guess had less money but still seemed pretty okay. I don't know, everybody seems very flashed movies.

I didn't really be like the difference in class didn't trans it didn't it really didn't like they seemed pretty on level to me visually, and so really the only context we get in that is, you know, dial and dialogue between them. But you want to hate him because it's just such a bullshit reason. But at the same time, I mean again, you know I I I mean obviously as three people who are more in the camp of Srk's character in this movie of Kind of Your Life, I don't get it. I don't understand whatever these these familial expectations or societal or cultural expectations are not something I care about or want to you know, deal with. You know, the the dad is written so believably like that's the thing.

I mean again, you know, um, I can only imagine being someone whose dad was like this, you know, and and not I mean again, because I'm sure we all have issues with her own fathers, or everybody does in some respect, and Maggie doesn't dudleysfect. Dudley's perfect. Yeah, Dudley. Well, with a name like that, what is there to say? There can't be anything mean to say about Dudley.

But but I do, I do get it, just d But you know, I mean again, we don't. You know. That's again, That's the thing that's hard to really understand about this movie as a Westerner, just the cultural expectations because we don't have them, at least the three of us don't. The three of us don't have them the way Rahul does in this movie, even as the adopted son. I mean, imagine, you know Rohan's position of he's the biological then you have the expectations for him, which I like that his character kind of never really lets those expectations seemingly get to him.

He's he kind of becomes the emotional fun center of the movie. He's always smiling, always happy. He's not, you know, SRK in the second half of the movie kind of takes a back seat, which is perfectly fine, but his character also kind of seems like more of a dick in the second half of the movie. Yeah, well, I mean after all of that, you got better. You probably, yeah, I guess.

I mean the other wouldn't be. I've done plenty of people that I went to high school with that got to sound for coming out it's gay and it's like, oh wow, so I have reconcile. The others have just went off and never came back. I will say, though, I'm not the biggest fan of the character that Karina. No, that that really was hard to Yeah, it's it.

Maybe it's like Alicia Silverstone from Clueless, right, Like that's kind of the it's kind of that. It's kind of a little bit it's a little bit of that. It's a little bit of that. It's a little bit of I'm sure of the time, like a Paris Hilton vibe or whatever, like just that like trying because it's at the time where you know, yeah, yeah, it's two thousand and one. There, you know, this is what Westerners are into, right, Like, well, especially when you're talking about posh versus like upper middle class I guess, right, the dynamic of the families, so of course you have to have like that kind of right, what simple life.

Yeah, Yeah, I just just yeah, it's really it's really obnoxious to say. True. Yeah, her her character is really overwritten, I think is the best way to put it. Like it just I don't know she you know, I like her, I've seen her another things. I am not a huge fan of this role, just primarily because she's so annoying.

Her character is written so just kind of it's just not much of a character. Yeah, it's very one dimensionally. It's a caricature. And she's doing good, she's doing well with what they gave her, but it's it's not a good character really. It doesn't quite have the silverstone charm of Clueless, where you can have the valley girl but she can also be smart.

Yeah, but this is just exactly I think they were really gutting for that to be like a nice comedic crutch to lean on when really there's just like so much other like charm in that film that could have handled some of the weight instead of them throwing lines up stral right. Well, and I find it kind of hard to see what someone who is kind of just wholesomely good as Rohan, sees in her as a character. When you when he when he can see when he can see her sister in the same scene, who's like kind of like the you know, like she's written so kind of perfectly. Again, Cagel is just kind of just you know, she's she's just kind of a klutz, but also a lovable klutz who says who just you know, speaks her mind and she's so goddamn lovable for it.

But then you have her sister, who's just such your teeth on edge tale as old as time. There's the good one and the annoying, really really really annoyed. Shoot, I think I'm the annoying one. Then I love that. I don't know how.

I don't know how you could be this annoying. No, when your catchphrase is hallelujah from its raining men, I think, you know, shit, I am the annoying one. Guys, it's me. But you're not like the barbie like that, Like she's gotten all like her personality is just makeup clothes. Boys.

She is a female character written by She is an idealized female character written by a man. That's yeah, that's actually every single female role in Western movies in the two thousands of the gods. You know, it's like, no that's that's girl girl like fresh and yeah, she has like a small purse and a tube top and a short skirt. Yeah, it's like the idealized Western woman. Yeah, exactly.

I'm surprised she didn't have a little toy dog. Right, Yeah, next time, there's always the next one. But it's not it's not played for like parody or for contrasting and comparing. It's played seriously, which is the problem. That's that's the Yeah, for some reason, out of all of that, that character is the one that seems the least on purpose, like like cheesy on purpose, where it's like, no, this is really this is why who she is?

M Yeah, because every scene that she's in is just the same thing. It's like, oh, he's so hot, I wonder what he's doing. Oh later nerd Like that's pretty much like half of her dialogue in just some sort of you know, version or variety of that, just over and over again again. Karina Kapoor fantastic actress. So it's not it's not her, it's it's weird role.

Well, it's not a good character. It's a character that maybe didn't need to be such a main part of the story at that point. Well, that's what I'm wondering. I mean, you know, the question obviously is with that character in the movie. You know, there's so much of the second and third act that has to do with that character, because she's the one who's getting married to, you know, Rohan, the srk's brother.

If you just take that character out of the movie and it's just the story of the brother going back to London to get his other brother, who would have worked, it would have been much better. I think I didn't think we did. I don't think we also needed that secondary love Oh the double wedding. Yeah, like I don't Why didn't we We didn't. Yeah, these are big events, all right, letting a lot, uh, you know, wedding boom.

I think that also we didn't have that love interest second wedding aspect. That part wouldn't have been as wouldn't have felt as brushed by would I'm like you said, a story, like Chris said, a story of this brother goes back, tries to reu my family. Maybe it still doesn't work for whatever reason. Grandma dies spoiler alert, sorry sorry, and then the brother comes back, and then we spend the rest of the movie dealing with yes, Grandma is dead, but now we are back together and we can kind of maybe wrap it up right around there, rather than also needing to cram another wedding yeah into it with a character that's far you know, less endearing and wanting of your screen time. Well, and also the whole you know, the hidden identity thing takes up a large portion of the second act, which essentially only exists because of the storyline with the sister.

Yes, if it was just he goes to London, he could just be there convincing his brother or doing whatever and not having to do this whole I mean, don't know who I you don't know who I am, And I'm right just some I mean that that is pulled straight out of DDLJ because SRK going as the friend and all of that is straight out of DDLJ. But it's done way better in DDLJ. Like it because it's the main part of the story. It actually makes perfect narrative sense. Here it just feels kind of tacked on.

So I think maybe we identify of what we view is the second act problem, yeah, second and third act problem. Yeah. Yeah. So if we just like removed that one character getting rid of all of those little side plots that are very redundant because we're doing the exact same thing, right, He's marrying a girl from the same family that his father disapproved of. We're just doing the same damn thing.

We don't need to do that. It was still going to be very impactful and meaningful and emotional had you let it be a brother and father son's story and ultimately about family and just in there, and I think you could still have those emotionally impactful scenes between Amy tab and SRK where you know, they're having their kind of final meeting at the end of the movie, where they're coming back together after ten years of not talking to each other. I think those scenes would still have a lot of emotional impact because nothing with the Hriti Roshan's story really feeds into that. Sr K's emotional journey throughout the movie and him rediscovering his relationship with his brother has nothing to do with his brother getting married.

No, no, nothing at all. I'm kind of surprised that he wouldn't recognize his brother. I get that it was a significant transformation, but mannerisms, like some mannerisms just don't go away. Yeah, I mean that, Yeah, I don't know. I always have a heart them.

Yeah, that none of them would recognize it because it's the brother wife and also her aunts who was like very close to the family to begin with. Yeah, so none of them really recognize them. So yeah, yeah, as we talk about it, I can definitely see where we gets trimmed and to look, I can't get it. It's just I don't know. That kind of took me out at the moment when I'm like, really, you're using your dad's name.

Yeah, No one's catching this. Weird glides weird like and there's a couple of moments where they like linger on the eyes like oh does someone no, and it's like now they're just gonna flow. Okay, never mind blow right path. The first scene between Pritty Groshawan and SRK is a little it's old man, it comes too early, right, Yeah, if if, if it, if it needed to exist at all, because again, like I actually completely agree. I think that the idea that no one can recognize him.

I mean, you know, is this you know, people might say, oh, she's nitpicking, like or you know, you're you're being you're being overly critical. I don't think it is, because it's actually well, and to just his point, it's a main part of this movie. It is the second act of this movie into the third act. Frankly, is this, Oh, we don't recognize him, like he lost weight, he didn't have plastic surgery exactly right, A different actor is playing him grown up because you can't age a child actor magically overnight. R you know, like it's supposed to be the grown up version of the kid that you've seen.

You're so, but it's so, it's fine if the character recognizes him, because the character would be right, right, oh where in some capacity? Right, it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, given that it's not like they didn't know one another, or that you know, he was born after he left years. That wouldn't be how you do it, Like it's like, what is the time jump between the ten years? It's like it's ten years.

So have them have the mom be pregnant with a child at the end of the first act and then that kid has grown up or it's like a baby, and then you know it's grown up, and then it makes sense why he doesn't know what he looks like, right, never seen he's he's only seen a baby pick of him. He's never seen he's never seen a picture of him grown up. There you go, and you don't have to have a you know, love story for no reason with the character that is just one dimensional and grading, to say the least, that character actively drags the movie down. It does. It's just it's just such, It's like it's unfortunate because again it's just a poorly written character that leans on like the worst stereotypes in western like romcom writing.

Yeah, yeah, I think that the ultimately the biggest is that a lot of the script gets in its own way for like it just it just kind of ends up walking itself in a circle for a good majority until it it knew where it wanted to go. I see that. Like I do think that this this, you know, it's very clear point A to B to see where we were going to go. But yeah, I think it just gets too wrapped up in itself. Well, it becomes focused on telling another love story in a movie that doesn't really need another love story.

I mean again, the love story between and the relationship building between SRK and Cajel effectively happens all off screen. I mean, we see what an hour and forty minutes of it, but there's ten years that we don't see where they grow as you know, as a husband and wife, and we never see it, and they even have a kid. So it feels like the second act of the movie sacrificed being around SRK and Cagel to be around the Karina Kapoor character, and in doing so, it just kind of, like you mentioned, Jessica, just gets the movie off into these weird tand it's almost like you fell asleep and woke up in a different movie. For a second, It's like, where are these people? They have a hint now right?

Well, yeah, I mean again, the fact that Karina Kapoor and Rittie Groshan aren't in the first hour and forty minutes of this movie. You know, again, one of them, I'm glad they weren't in it, but the other one. Whenever Rittie Roshan is on screen the rest of the cast, he is really good, and it the movie does suffer by not having him in. Huh yeah anything else, man, I mean, it was a good holler, I will say, yeah. I mean, I think overall it's still a good movie.

It just has a higher degree at cheats than than than usual, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just interesting choices were made on it. Well, I think I think ultimately the movie knows the story it's telling. I just don't think that. I don't think that, like you've mentioned, I don't think Jess, the story doesn't need to double back on itself with the story it's already told, because it doesn't do anything the second time around. Differently.

Now it's not like the son getting married to the sister is is somehow the father's mind has changed. Now, yeah, now that's mind change because it's ten years later and it's like, oh, right, you stuck to your guns and you actually didn't come back and you did. Yeah, I've seen at the end of the movie is worth the three and a half hours it really is to get to that. But it shouldn't take three and a half hours. That's the problem.

No, And it kind of has the feeling that you get with like the ensemble movies that had a few test audiences and they were wanting to cater to every single like age group and dynamic in that because it seemed like it was very family centric. So maybe they threw in just this whacking character for the young people, because they don't understand that you can still just have a goofy character that still is an important character or like well rounded. It just some of the decisions seemed like it was made in the lab as opposed to coming from This is the story I want to tell and push it through. I think the core is for sure, It's just a couple stray decisions that probably were pushed on the creative team for that one.

DLJ came out an Srk and Kagel were not the pair that they are now at this point. You can't recapture lightning in a bottle no matter how hard you try. I mean you varying degrees of success could be had. Cooch Couch Uta High is fun and I think it's probably the better sequel to DDLJ. It is not three and a half hours.

It is more of Cagel and SRK, so you don't have to be disappointed that you're not getting someone else because they're just not in it at all anyway. But you know, I think it's admirable that this movie is, like you mentioned Maggie, a movie that has a very serious core message, a kind of core Tenet of beliefs that's dictating the direction the movie is going. Yes, but it is still funny. It is still a fun movie that, like you mentioned, Jess, you can get through in one sitting. And it's three and a half hours and it doesn't feel like and there aren't a lot of movies that are three hours plus that don't feel like they're it's three hours plus, which for many of us, if you watch a three and a half hour movie in your day, that's like a fourth of your day gone.

Yeah, a lot of time. That's a lot of time to sit and watch one movie. And effectively it's three and it's two almost almost three movies, you know, two movies worth of movie, right, But also, I mean, look now are the days that we watch like seven or eight hours worth of television show in one straight setting. So I agree. I'm just saying, you know, for some people to watch just one singular thing maybe, and you know, this does feel like two movies kind of strapped together at the hip, And a lot of these Indian cinema films that I've seen don't feel like that this one does.

And there are a couple other movies that have this time jump thing. I think Cooch Couch Hotahi actually has a time jump thing as well, because it shows the opening where the mom is dead and then they go and tell the story of when they were at school, and then it jumps back to the present. So you know, maybe that could have worked here to better effect, so that instead of feeling like you have to tell the whole story to get to the point, you're just telling the flashback parts or interspersing the flashbacks throughout the movie. I don't know, you know, an hour and a half or hour forty of the intro of the movie or the prelude to the actual movie is a bit, but there's no way, there's no way it won't be now then or forever.

If that's the setup for your movie is a full movie, that's I mean it is. I mean the movie is three and a half hours long. There's a setup movie for your movie is what it feels like, full movie attached to your movie. And that's after a like a weird interview format intro followed by a photomontage credit sequence, and then you're just getting hit over the head with past stuff. It really the movie is really focused on setting the stage for the things to come.

And actually sitting here and thinking about it, given where we kind of came down on the movie. I think the first act of the movie may be the best part of them. Do enjoy it, but from beginning to end it does seem like almost two separate movies. You're right, it's kind of a little link in with a weird like weird center. It's it's unfortunate because it should feel like one complete narrative.

It just it just doesn't. And I think that that's the biggest knock against this movie is the second act or the second half of the movie just doesn't for me, it doesn't hang with the first half. As good as the second half can be, I don't think it hits the highs of the first half, right, Nope, I would agree all in all of the journey was well worth it. It's just yeah, sometimes happy sometimes Yeah. Boy, ain't that the true?

So so so Maggie. Final thoughts on K three G Yeah, I mean it's worth a watch. I just think that if you wanted to get that rom Com scratch edged, I would go with DDL or. I mean, there's a bunch of other ones. It's not it's not the worst family feature, but it was fun.

It's just a bit meandering. So I'd say if you even split it into it two parter, that would be honesome. Just have two different nights, do first half second half. J I mean, yeah, I agree, it's DDL is if we're talking about, you know, between the last time we talked about Indian cinema versus now, DL is definitely a better than one I'm gonna go with. But yeah, I mean I feel like I definitely credit the young Yeah, it was it did get you know, the wine was at least worth for that punch impact.

It didn't connect with me and that in that specific, you know way, and that's why I would ultimately like MCIN that's been more focused on that aspect of the family and the latter half of the movie than the other thing. But overall, yeah, it's it's a good movie. It's the dance sequences. I mean, anytime I watch Bollywood movie, I am Bollywood movies. I am just amazed and astounded and perplexed how they can even shoot something like that, like just with the how just intense to choreography and blocking and everything that goes into it.

Even if I didn't like the music sequence, sequences all the time. They're all just so kind of enamoring to watch. But yeah, it's a spectacle piece that's really cool. Just imagine if George Clooney was out there dancing like that, right, I mean, I wish more movies had just random as fun dance sequences. If you're going to be an Indian actor, you have to be multi talented.

You got to be able to dance and sing and do Chorea. Ye gotta be a quad threat. Total a total, a total pack. Yeah, you know, I agree. Obviously I'm biased.

D D l J is a movie that I think about often, and I don't watch it nearly enough. But this movie is fun. This is the third or fourth time I've seen it, because I did watch it earlier this year when I thought we were doing this episode with somebody else and that ended up not happening. So watch it again two more times now for this so it's fun. It is a little long in the tooth.

I think there are moments of emotional peaks, and then there are character lows that are just hard to kind of sit with in the same movie because they're written by the same person. So there is that, you know, there's only one name on the written by and it's cover and Joe har So take full credit for the successes and for the failures. But it's a fun movie. It is just it's a little long, and it's a little long because of some kind of interesting choices that were made that I don't think they needed to make to get to the same You know, they don't have to go to A B B one, B two, B three, You can just go to C. Don't have to take a fucking detour just because you want to.

Maybe if you just want to cool, I get it, but don't take a detour for our sake, Like sometimes more is not better. Yeah, So until the next time we do one of these episodes. Where could people find you? On the internet? Chest You can find me on Instagram at writer just Fired.

Pretty much everything I do somehow gets there at some point magically, it just poofs on I have no idea. What about you, Maggie. You can find me at Dolan Museum dot com on I also have a YouTube at Dolan the Odd And as for me, you can find me and this show and a whole host of other shows at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. The podcast network that we set up for all the stuff that we work on, so stuff that Jess and I have worked on, like the one season show, stuff like Maggie and I have worked on, the lost tapes chronicles over at Scary Stories, we tell that's where you can find all of that, And if you can't find it there, maybe you shouldn't be listening as for this show. Bollywould send him aclub dot com.

That's where you can go for this show. But you know, just go there and listen to the show, listen, rate, review on iTunes or wherever you get the show. Social media sucks and nobody wants to interact with it. Maggie Jess, thank you both so much for joining me. This was fun.

Maybe next time the movie won't be almost four hours long and we're here for it though that's fair, and uh yeah, we'll catch you on the next episode.