Spoilers ahead…
Within its first few minutes, Shivaay makes a strong case for its existence. We see the eponymous hero (Ajay Devgn, who also directed), a mountaineer who escorts tourists on treks, driving a jeep. Beside him is Olga (Erika Kaar), a Bulgarian client. Not knowing that she understands Hindi, Shivaay decides to pay her a compliment: “Aasmaan ke rang aankhon mein liye utari hai yeh videshi apsara.” Shah Rukh Khan would imbue this line with the sense that he was hitting on each word – by the time he was done, the period would be blushing. Devgn sounds like he’s reading out the annual report of a public sector bank. Shivaay is modelled on Taken, and the Liam Neeson way is a good way to go when you can’t pretend to be interested in love stories anymore, and are too old to keep grinning at Tusshar Kapoor’s pratfalls in the latest Golmaal instalment.
Shivaay is an ambitious film. The central dynamic between father and daughter can be established in many ways. You could – for instance – open the film with a father and daughter, and maybe weave in a backstory about the mother. Devgn, though, stages an elaborate subplot. He gives us Shivaay falling in love with Olga, whose presence in his life is determined by the date on her visa. When Olga gets pregnant, we get heated arguments about having the baby, which could make a whole movie. This isn’t just about one’s readiness to be a parent. This is about who’s going to drive the child to piano lessons when the father is in the Himalayas and the mother is back in Sofia. Is this too much emotion for what the trailer sold as an action movie? Perhaps. But these developments give us emotional purchase. We see how hard Shivaay fought for this child, and we know how much harder he’s going to fight to get her back once she is kidnapped.
There’s another reason for all this drama. Devgn wants to deliver not just a Hollywood-style thriller, but a thriller that looks like it was made in Hollywood. When the little girl (Gaura, played by the terrific Abigail Eames) learns that her mother lives in Bulgaria, she insists on meeting her. That’s where she ends up being, well, taken. And this allows Devgn and his cinematographer Aseem Bajaj to steer clear from the warm colours of India. The film’s look is chilly, a menthol blue. Bajaj does career-best work here. Any man with a camera can manufacture beauty from mountainside settings, but Bajaj does something we rarely see in our cinema. He shoots action in a way that makes us hold on to our seats. When Shivaay commandeers a taxi by crashing through its windshield, we feel like we’re speeding alongside. We want to swerve to safety. The first big action set piece is spectacular and relentless. It keeps going on and on, and just when we think it’s over, it goes on some more.
Unfortunately, so does the film. It runs a numbing three hours, with increasingly laughable characters. (Especially the bad guys. Among Shivaay’s shorthand for the depth of human behaviour is a passion for opera.) Thrillers need to be tight, focused – and Devgn keeps slowing the film down for sentimental stretches. But then, the Hollywood leading man doesn’t face the compulsions that drive his Indian counterpart. Neeson can just be a hero. Devgn has to display heroism. Shivaay is some sort of holy trinity all by himself – god, superhero, and father of the millennium. An Indian woman (Sayesha Saigal) who helps Shivaay in Sofia is saddled with a father (Girish Karnad), just so that he can tell her (and the audience) what it is like to have a daughter. Neeson’s journey felt like a single-minded mission. Devgn’s feels like a righteous crusade. Devgn doesn’t just save his daughter, but the daughters of many other fathers, when he liberates women held captive by the villain. The latter’s end comes not with a gunshot but through an icicle shaped like a trident.
There’s no rule that says you can’t overlay a Hollywood narrative with mythical overtones (Bolo har har background chants; larger-than-life references to oneself in the third person, as in “Shivaay Himalay ke siva kahin aur nahin reh paayega”). But you cannot expect an audience to care about the tenth drawn-out car chase as much as they did about the first, especially when they catch you preening in the rear-view mirror. Among the many narcissistic touches: European women looking at Shivaay and sighing, “He’s so hot and sexy.” The most unforgivable portions come at the end, when we think it’s all over. Olga entices Gaura to stay back with a roomful of stuffed toys. Her new husband tops this by giving Gaura a puppy. Devgn walks around with the look of a man who wants the audience to remember he’s not just an action star but a two-time National Award™-winning actor as well. Neeson, given these scenes, would have driven a piton through his eye.
KEY:
- “Aasmaan ke rang aankhon mein liye utari hai yeh videshi apsara.” = This foreign goddess has the colour of the skies in her eyes.
- Golmaal = see here; and here
- Shivaay Himalay ke siva kahin aur nahin reh paayega = Shivaay can live only in the Himalayas.
Copyright ©2016 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Dracarys
October 30, 2016
Desi version of ‘Taken’ minus punch dialogs
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ravenus1
October 31, 2016
“My take: Some great stunts. But terribly long, and becomes hard to care (or keep awake) after a point.”
Don’t know if you need a review beyond that statement for this one 😀
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Anuj
November 1, 2016
Shivaay is a one of a kind action masterpiece in Hindi cinema with some breath taking stunts and excellent camerawork. The idea of human trafficking is has a novelty factor for Indian audiences and Ajay Devgn is the heart & soul of the film. An absolute must watch for action junkies. Pity that the communist inclined media and the urban pseudo liberals are busy trolling this film for that lousy mushy romantic Karan Johar trash. Perhaps had the movie been names “Sikander” or “Javed” with one of the Khans featuring among the leads, the media and pseudo liberal city based audiences would have gone all gaga over this one. For now, the only places it seems to be finding favor are the interiors and tier2/3 cities :
http://simplebollywoodreviewer.blogspot.in/2016/10/shivaay-review-har-har-mahadev.html
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MANK
November 1, 2016
Anuj , i do agree that there is a general feeling that Shivaay was panned more than it should have been, while ADHM was praised more than it should have been, But i think there is more to it than what you are making of it. True , there has never been such political polarisation vis a vis movie releases – perhaps never in indian cinema- the kind we saw for the latest diwali releases.
But ADHM is getting praised for a lot of things, a solid cast, good music and most of all Kjo stepping out of his comfort zone and making the most intimate honest film ever.Now i have a lot of issues with the film which i had commented about on that thread, but still l it does look like a superior product overall
On the other hand, Shivaay is mounted on a scale rarely seen in Hindi cinema. The action set-pieces are staged phenomenally, And as an actor Ajay is really good . but you minus Ajay and action scenes , there is hardly much to recommend in the film. the supporting cast, the story , screenplay are all straight out of Bmovies . to top it, the length is intolerable . Apart from the action scenes, Ajay fails spectacularly as a director.so on the whole it does give off the vibes of an inferior product.
Now once this happens , how the audience and especially the critics approach the film changes. so in the case of ADHM, critics are going for the positives and more or less side stepping the negatives while in the case of Shivaay, its the opposite, they are harping on the negatives. now i have seen here on this blog, how Brangan is repeatedly taken to task for not mentioning the good things that are there in a bad movie, which he has roundly thrashed and not pointing out the terrible things in movie he has liked and praised – as many of us continue to debate with him and he generously discusses about them in the comment section of the blog- . But i believe that that’s general approach that critics usually takes.
Now i wont deny that a section of media is led by their political beliefs and skews the news in that direction, but i just want to put things in perspective and say that thats not the only reason why critical evaluation has been so unbalanced for the Diwali releases.
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Anuj
November 1, 2016
@MANK : ADHM is yet another “so called” experiment from Dharma Productions, just like KANK and MNIK too were apparently “KJO stepping out of his comfort zone”. Frankly, ADHM offers nothing, absolutely nothing new to what we have already witnessed in the 5-6 odd boring films he’s written/directed with KKHH still being the most novel (and watchable) of the lot.
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Ravnel Ram
November 1, 2016
That first trailer with the music and action, really hyped me. Thought it might be something interesting or hot garbage. It wasn’t either, it was just pretty boring. The action was good but worse than I thought it would be. A lot of bad cgi action sequences.
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Anuj
November 1, 2016
Agreed that the plot is wafer thin and the screenplay is overlong and editing is shoddy, yet this is worth a watch for every Hindi cinema action movie lover. For the rest, they might just give it a miss.
@MANK : I bet you, had this movie been named “Sikander” and had these stunts been performed by an SRK or an Aamir (although both might need a dozen body doubles to pull this off) instead of the media unfriendly Devgan, the average rating for Shivaay would have been a 3.5/5 and the movie would have broken all Box office records, thanks to the KHAN friendly (and Ajay/Akshay unfriendly) metro multiplex audience and the self proclaimed seculars turning up in huge numbers.
PS: Still didn’t get what’s so B-Grade about a plot involving kidnapping and child trafficking among the notorious European mafia (something that our maoist and extremist sympathizing media houses never speak of).
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MANK
November 1, 2016
Anuj, i meant it as in a Bmovie, like say Taken- from which this film is obviously inspired – is a B movie. And i dont mean it pejoratively. i like a good B movie yarn
But the problem here is that Ajay has an A list vision for his film,Its really epic .the scale at which it is mounted , the amount of subject matter he wants to cover, the running time of the film. here all point towards that.
But its completely at odds with the screenplay and characterizations he has developed for this movie. for one this would have made a crackerjack B action picture at 2hrs running time – like taken is. – it would have had A very good opening , i dont know about critic ratings and i don t much care , because i would have been entertained much more by that movie than what we have here Hell look at the amount of flab he has tagged on to the picture. this is the danger that happens every time an actor becomes a director. he never knows where to stop.it is really good to be ambitious , but the ambition has to be backed by the quality of the final product. And going by his previous film u, me aur hum, i dont think he had the pedigree to direct such an ambitious film.
I do really like Devgan as an actor. he is not the most versatile of actors, but within his range – Khakhee,company, Zakham, etc – he is a super performer. i hate him in those terrible comedies though. And Yes i do realize that Ajay is not very popular with the media. All throughout his career, he has never gone out of his way to court the media like Aamir or SRK, nor did he have a giant publicity machine like Dharma or Yashraj to back him up. That has cost him over the years.But you cant ignore the fact that Aamir or SRK is a bigger star than Ajay – eventhough SRK’s commercial clout has been questionable in recent times – and the media backing is not the only reason why their films pick up such huge numbers in the first weekend
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MANK
November 1, 2016
And regarding the mainstream media’s bias in favor of muslim actors and movies and against hindu actors, All i can say is that, i have no personal knowledge of such a thing and it sounds more apocryphal than true.may be you know something that i dont
P.S.I hear that after a poor opening, both shivaay and ADHM has picked up at the BO on monday and perhaps 100 cr + collections will not be impossible to achieve But dunno whether it will be enough for shivaaay which is an expensive picture.so diwali wasnt such a disaster as everyone feared..Going by the opening weekend collections, i imagined that a lot more production houses will be closing down in bollywood by the end of the year.
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Anu Warrier
November 1, 2016
I don’t think the mainstream media’s bias towards the Khans is because they are Muslim. Like it or not, they are the ruling trio, and it is, like everything else, pure commerce. If Ajay or Akshay pulled in the sort of crowds the Khans do, then they would be backed the same way. Let’s not bring religion into an industry which honesty doesn’t care whether you’re Hindu or Muslim or Christian. All that matters is the box-office. If Ajay had the box-office clout the Khans do (and even amongst them, Salman and SRK have more ‘drawing power’ than Aamir does), everyone would be fawning over him as well.
All that said, apart from the action, there was nothing of note about Shivaay – Ajay should stick to acting – like MANK, I liked him a lot in quite a few films – Khakhee, Company, Zakhm, Ddeewangee, HDDCS, The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Yuva, Raincoat – and he and Akshay probably are the best ‘action heroes’ we have today, but director he is not.
You yourself admit that ‘…the plot is wafer thin and the screenplay is overlong and editing is shoddy,…’. So obviously, people are going to carp on the lack of plot, length of the film and the shoddy editing. What do you expect?
Your argument that if it had been the Khans instead of Ajay in this film, the ‘seculars’ would have come out in droves, then negates your argument why ADHM became a hit, no? No, the ‘seculars’ would not have come out in droves because when a film has only ‘action’ to recommend it, then you’re limiting the audience to those who like action. (I don’t. Unless it’s part of an entire package.)
If the ‘seculars’ and the media always made the Khan films a hit, then SRK’s last few films shouldn’t have flopped. Salman is the only Khan who, in recent times, has been able to draw in the crowds into the theatre purely on account of his name, irrespective of the content of his films – and he certainly doesn’t get any media love or critical appreciation of his films.
Also, ADHM has had very few favourable critical reviews. Other than BR, Rajeev Masand and Rediff, every other review I read – The Hindu, Indian Express, Guardian, Variety, Huffington Post, DNA – has uniformly given it a 2 or 3.
And neither Shivaay nor ADHM is doing too badly; so, going by the audience reaction, Shivaay is holding its own despite limiting its audience to people who seek out high-voltage action and don’t care if the rest is shoddy, while ADHM is raking in the people who like romantic mush. 🙂
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Rahul
November 1, 2016
Arjun Says –
“instead of the media unfriendly Devgan”
Do you not know that Ajay Devgn has numerically altered his name ? It is because of pseudo fans like you who send negative electromagnetic vibes towards his box office collection each time they misspell his name that his films suffer.
If a Khan had changed his name to Kahn I am sure pseudo fans like Anuj would have been falling over each other to get the spelling right.
Really sad state of affairs.
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Anuj
November 1, 2016
“Arjun Says –
“instead of the media unfriendly Devgan” ” ~ i guess you decided to change my spelling too. Perhaps you’re the reason why the Bodyguard’s of the world collect more than the Shivaay’s 😛
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Rahul
November 1, 2016
Anuj, only an anti national like you can equate the misspelling of your name with Devgn, our most patriotic star , which you have not yet apologized for.
Really sad state of affairs.
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Anu Warrier
November 1, 2016
Wow! Now someone’s ‘anti-national’ because they mis-spelled an actor’s name?! Really sad state of affairs!
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Rahul
November 1, 2016
Anu Warrier, Pity that the communist inclined media and the urban pseudo liberals cannot see Anuj’s agenda here. He is, outwardly posing as a Devgn supporter but as part of a big pseudo liberal conspiracy is surreptitiously misspelling his name, to harm his box office prospects. I am still willing to give him the benefit of doubt if he apologizes.
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hhsr
November 2, 2016
Unless Anuj is a regular commentator on this blog, and is otherwise noted to be a rational individual, cannot believe regulars like MANK and Anu indulging his rant.
Also, Anu, I am guessing Rahul is trolling Anuj here for the lack of logic in his argument. Or Anuj could be trolling us all. I am confused.
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Apu
November 2, 2016
Umm Anu Warrier: I think Rahul is joking with words like “pseudo-fans” and “anti-national”. (I guess, because else it is a little dumb)
Also, thanks for your reply to the “ADHM is favored because of Muslim names”.
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Satyajit
November 2, 2016
एक बार शिवाय बन जाओ कुछ और बनने की जरुरत नहीं…
Shivaay is nowhere related to Lord Shiva….but name Shiva itself is inseparable…u simply can’t detach it from anything… same with this movie…
Character played by Devgn has this name Shivaay… mountaineer… “Extraordinary man caught in extraordinary circumstances”…as per a dialogue in movie…like Lord Shiva….Shivaay has many things in common…
Imperfect….a loving person…loving dad…powerful personality…super hero out of comics…mainly….Destroyer…A Transformer…
Everything is there…but all come in pieces….and after connecting all these dots…it’s…overall OK movie….
But Shivaay achieved many things…this can be a game changer…it has power which can change tone of Bollywood…now Bollywood will re-think before adding south indian action…I hope so…
Fabulous action (sometimes) and cinematography are major +ves…take home from Shivaay….Devgn is normal…Devgn as director dint keep any scope for him as an actor…
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Anu Warrier
November 2, 2016
Apu, hhsr, I didn’t think Anuj is trolling. And I certainly don’t think Rahul is (scarily enough!):
as part of a big pseudo liberal conspiracy is surreptitiously misspelling his name, to harm his box office prospects.
Someone actually believes that misspelling a name (that is, spelling it how it originally was spelled) can cause harm? Deliberate harm? And somehow it’s anti-national?
I would like to think ‘troll’ but I’m afraid not.
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Senthil
November 3, 2016
Anuj: No need to crap on SRK so much. What’s the media bias toward SRK? Dilwale and Happy New Year were trash films and got trashed by the media. Fan was a great movie and got praised by the media(sadly it flopped, but that’s another story).
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Santa
November 3, 2016
Anu: I am 99% certain that Rahul is in fact trolling Anuj (can’t be 100% certain because I know neither Rahul nor Anuj). I think his first comment gives it away: “..negative electromagnetic vibes towards box-office collections…”. That is just dripping with sarcasm and absurdity.
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Tom Traubert
November 3, 2016
MANK, I know you are a massive Ajay Devgan fan, your love for him has somewhat diminished after Branga undermined him in all his recent films and underscored his lack of versatility.
However, you might want to go back to his review of Devgan’s directorial debut “U, me or hum” where he quite liked Devgan’s work as a Director and praised his natural staging prowess. Here’s the link
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brangan
November 3, 2016
Tom Traubert: Um, I may be jumping the gun on this, but I get the feeling you’re just here to yank someone’s chain. If so, may I suggest another Tom Waits number? It’s… Closing Time 🙂
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rothrocks
November 3, 2016
Rahul: Hats off to you. 😛 When you create so much confusion over your intent, you know you have succeeded. Some nice old school internet trolling will help get the temperature down in the bizarre times that we live in.
By the way I remember in the early days of this govt I believe they or RSS announced their desire to promote films that promote good Indian values like DDLJ. Er, no kidding! Interesting that merely casting Fawad Khan in an insignificant role has now burnished KJo’s sickular credentials. I bet even that Austin Powers villain would be embarrassed by so much confusion as to who’s on which side.
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Tom Traubert
November 3, 2016
Brangan, No way…..
I am here primarily for your reviews, which I enjoy reading immensely. I also like reading MANK’s take on your reviews.
And thanks for closing time (love the album), you might also want to tune in to his most recent number… Bad as me..
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Anu Warrier
November 3, 2016
Santa, I hope he’s trolling. Unfortunately, I have met people who do talk like that, and mean it.
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MANK
November 3, 2016
Brangan, you forgot 2 major pluses of the film , that computer geek man – played by Veer das, he was damn funny 🙂
And and , a polish actress playing a Bulgarian character who speaks better hindi than Katrina Kaif 😀
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Shankar
November 3, 2016
“Shah Rukh Khan would imbue this line with the sense that he was hitting on each word – by the time he was done, the period would be blushing.”
Beautiful line, Baddy…
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brangan
November 4, 2016
MANK: Not just Katrina Kaif. You have to marvel at this foreigner’s sincerity and dedication, learning the lines, getting the lip-sync and pronunciation right, dubbing for themselves. The simple thing is that they take their craft, their job seriously. Our Tamil heroines just don’t bother.
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Ratso
November 4, 2016
Anuj: Sir, do you realise that most of Karan Johar’s cronies and fans are in fact Right-wing conservatives, not Leftist liberals? K’jo was always powerful but he only became the darling of the Right after he darkened his cinema with Student Of The Year. Do you realise that most of the people who prefer ADHM over Shivay are conservatives? If India’s liberal media had so much influence on public, then 3 Idiots would have been a washout and the likes of Gulaal and Bombay Velvet would have been the most watched movies. It was India’s liberal media that ridiculed 3 Idiots for student suicides. You said that had any Khan done Shivaay (or ‘Sikander’ or ‘Javed’) it would not have faced much criticism. Sir, you couldn’t be more wrong. If SRK had that much influence on Left, then how come Happy New Year, Dilwale and Fan failed? In fact, Bajirao Mastani (a film deeply loved by the conservative Right) trumped Dilwale with pomp. And Jungle Book (Right-wing’s staple Hollywood) surpassed Fan.
Some of the most loved movies of this year are Airlift, Rustom and Neerja. All three movies were ‘patriotic’ movies that the conservatives adored.
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Radhika
November 5, 2016
@ Rahul.
“It is because of pseudo fans like you who send negative electromagnetic vibes towards his box office collection each time they misspell his name that his films suffer.”
Hahaha, I feel for you. Subtle sarcasm is not something that works in India. And when people get you are not serious they think you are trolling! This is why we need emojis. We need one for “pulling leg” except that it would probably look obscene and there would be a court case on you.
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Madan
November 5, 2016
“In fact, Bajirao Mastani (a film deeply loved by the conservative Right) trumped Dilwale with pomp” – Really? I think this is rather reductive. Bajirao Mastani is maybe more liberal than a film like ADHM in that the Peshwa dared the Brahmin bastion to indict him if they could for being married to two ladies at the same time, with the second being a Muslim. You will note that his associates think nothing of having Mastani as a keep but object strenuously to his attempts to dignify his relationship with her and accord it the respect he thinks it deserves. By the way I do not and can never agree with bigamy but I do appreciate how SLB brought out the hypocrisy involved in the puritanism of the Brahmin establishment. Also, as a liberal, I still liked, nay loved, Neerja for Madhvani’s efforts to capture the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in a plane for several hours together as I felt this quality while watching it in a cinema hall with the lights out. People just like films because they like it and as long as we remember this, we can hopefully kill this bizarre war over cinema being waged in the country.
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Anuj
November 5, 2016
@Senthil : Fan great movie? One of the most loophole filled mindless piles of trash delivered by the stammering con artist. At least Dilwale and HNY never pretended to be meaningful cinema, unlike Fan! Seems like you’re one of those from the generation that smitten by the over rated DDLJ’s and KKHH’s of the world 😛
http://thesimplebollywoodreviewer.blogspot.sg/
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Ratso
November 6, 2016
Mr. Anuj, “good” cinema is a matter of perspective, unless you’re talking about the likes of Anurag Kashyap, whose cinema is beyond any criticism. I didn’t like “Fan” but it doesn’t even matter whether it’s a good film or bad. The point is, that it was panned by media and public and it flopped. So your Khan theory is false.
Cinema and politics is a toxic mix, just like religion and politics. State and cinema should be separate but it seems too late now. At least liberals don’t choose their leaders based on their taste in cinema. The day is not far when the darling of the conservatives, Tanmay Bhat, will be the next big shot of youth politics. God save this world.
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Ratso
November 6, 2016
Mr. Anuj those who love MSG should not throw stones at ‘Fan’.
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sridharraman
November 7, 2016
@brangan, regarding this: “Our Tamil heroines just don’t bother.”
Why do you think it is so? I have had countless discussion with many people and still haven’t figured out the reason for this trend. Even when I was growing up, my mother used to comment that Mohan was the only hero who became a hit despite not dubbing for himself. So, it was a rare “achievement” to become popular without dubbing for oneself. How did heroines escape this?
Is it the trend of North Indian imports (Khushbu, Simran, Jyothika) who had no clue about the language and hence had to be dubbed over? But, I realised that even Radha/Ambika didn’t seem to dub for themselves in all their movies.
Is it more expensive for the producer/director to get heroines to dub for themselves? Is it more time spent in post-production?
Is it, sadly, the usual “market” reason? People flocking to movies don’t care if the heroine dubs for herself, so why should film-makers bother?
And there are multiple levels to this problem.
1) At one level you have heroines who do not know the language, but put in some effort to at least lip sync properly.
2) Then you have heroines who don’t know the language, coast through by mouthing “ABCDE” and get away with it.
3) Then you have heroines who speak Tamil, but still don’t dub for themselves!
We hear of certain heroines (Asin, e.g.) who put their foot down and say that they will dub for themselves. But why does such a scenario even exist? Why is the default state for heroines to not (expected to) dub for themselves?
I don’t know if you have written about this earlier. Kindly point towards it. But if not, is there some kind of history to this malaise that you are aware of?
It’s highly frustrating!!
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Madan
November 7, 2016
“Why is the default state for heroines to not (expected to) dub for themselves?” – BR saab with his background can answer as to the specific question of heroines. But there is a chalta hai/poi tholaiyattam attitude in India which sadly also prevails in the arts. I would not be surprised if this had something to do with how many people IR got on the wrong side of. As in, there is no inherent drive for excellence among most people and they will gladly accept mediocrity. I once had the chance to sing En Vazhvile on stage. I was given only one rehearsal and I asked if the musicians were comfortable with the arrangements. Yellam mandai attitu performance was sodhappal sabha. They completely underestimated how complex and interrelated the arrangements are and it threw me off badly too. And then the organiser of the program tells me my performance was disappointing. Acha, another example. There is this song Jadu Teri Nazar from the film Darr which I once had to perform and in the interlude when the guitar part comes on, there is nothing else (except percussion) playing in the background. During rehearsals, the keyboard players kept playing even when the guitar came on, drowning it out. I told them not to do so and they nodded. But on performance day, they reverted to norm and drowned out the guitar. I do wonder why these people are full time musicians if they have scant regard for even such basic aspects of the arrangement which profoundly affect what the performance sounds like to the audience. I am not even getting into dynamic level, forget it, it’s like Mumbai weather, loud, louder and loudest, no contrast. So the answer as to why heroines don’t dub themselves is they don’t care, they have seen that heroines are in fact successful with Savita Reddy dubbing and the audience also doesn’t want to hear their real voice so why take tension.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
November 7, 2016
Is it the trend of North Indian imports (Khushbu, Simran, Jyothika) who had no clue about the language and hence had to be dubbed over?
sridharraman: Yes, probably. The Tamil heroines of yesteryear dubbed for themselves – JJ, Lakshmi, Srividya, Sridevi, Sripriya, Suhasini, Radhika, et al., The Tamil of Andhra imports – like Saritha and Banupriya – would put our own women’s to shame. You’ll never find Radhika’s voice in Telugu films (probably because she did not know the language). And, Sridevi started dubbing in Hindi only after Chaal Baaz; there might be few exceptions like Sadma, Himmatwala, et al., However, you can find her voice in Tamil and Telugu films. So, language was clearly an issue.
In case of women from Kerala (Ambika, Radha and the likes), again there was the same problem. Add that to the heavily-accentuated Mallu tongue. Had they learned the language it still wouldn’t have made any difference.The late Sujatha was an exception though. I came across a recent interview of Suhasini, where she talked about her not being allowed to dub her lines in Malayalam (she dubs for herself in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada). Ditto with Lakshmi. A Keralite friend of mine once told me that even the greatest actresses of their land wouldn’t dub for themselves in their films. They have dubbing artists (who are perhaps as popular as their heroines) who are assigned to specific set of actresses. They even have a state award in this category! This trend caught up with Tamil cinema in the 90s when Khushboo, Roja, Nagma and the likes came to the scene.
Another interesting case is directors dubbing for their heroes/villains even if the latter knows the language. Viz., Balu Mahendra, Bharathiraaja and GVM. I recently watched Vedham Puthithu, and was surprised to see ‘Nizhalgal’ Ravi speaking in Bharathiraaja’s voice. Sigh, the best thing about the latter is his voice. 🙂
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Anuj
November 11, 2016
Mr. Ratso, firstly I never said I loved MSG. God knows what you’re smoking. Secondly, Anurag Kashyap is over-rated imo and has made some preposterous movies like No Smoking, Girl in yellow boots and the ever so unbearable Bombay Velvet! So ya, no one is beyond criticism unless someone’s living in your fantasy world, not even Lord Rama or Jesus.
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