Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Bollywood Rules!

Since I'm home sick today, I thought I'd put my time in between naps to good use.

I'm working on an informal "Intro to Bollywood" YouTube-type video for an acquaintance. Basically, I'm trying to whittle down my list of necessary Bollywood elements...the rules if you will. All commercial films follow some sort of rule system as far as story elements are concerned.

Sooo, here's my top 3. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

  1. There is always a love story. Always. (I especially like it when people find time for love in the middle of a terrorist subplot. That warms my heart.)
  2. Grown men cry...and dance! (Korean actors have the crying part down but most of them can't dance a lick.)
  3. There will be blood singing and EVERYONE will lipsynch. (If you know of an actor/actress that sings their own stuff. Please do let me know!)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Big B sings some of his own stuff.

Anonymous said...

The legendary Kishore Kumar sang ALL of his own stuff.

Karen said...

This just may be my new favorite blog...I'm black, I've been a fan of Bollywood since high school and I'm Christian. I'm really intrigued with this spot. I'll be catching up on you're older posts with delight.

www.thinkvirtue.com

Anonymous said...

hey bombaygirl, has BigB done that recently? I most def need to check that out...

Anon, thanks for the tip on Kishore Kumar, I'll have to search for his films.

Welcome solshine7! Some days I feel like a clearinghouse for black bollywood fans. Quite honestly, that's ok by me. :)

Anonymous said...

Bhoothnath (released in last month) has a song which was sang by Big B and Juhi Chawla.The song is titled as "Chalo jane do,Ab choro bhi".Hey t-hype, Hrithik is coming to ur country in next month.Have a good time!
Ahir

nic said...

Before playback was invented all bollywood actors used to sing their own songs and after playback was available most actors started lipsynching.
But there have been a few notable exceptions..Big B has sung some of his own songs and has had great success with it.
The "rang barse" song sung by him in 1981 is till date the most popular holi song and even after more than 25 years no holi celebration in India is complete without this

song. Heres the link to the song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm17BPGvZSc
But life is not so simple, so you may hear a song which seems to be in Big B's voice but it may have been sung by Sudesh Bhosale since he is able to mimic Big B's voice

perfectly. An example would be the hugely popular "Jumma Chumma" song which was sung by him and helped Amitabh revive his career. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSVKksTSvEc
Now vocal talent is no longer required to sing songs as there is software available which can create the songs. The actors just read out the song as well as they can and the software does the magic for them. Most leading male stars have thus sung songs in their films. Hrithik hasn't done this yet, but he too may be compelled to try something different since his clone is all set to make his debut in bollywood. if u don't know what I am talking about check this out ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipoo9kFh1HY

kingsqueen said...

How about - they are ALL musicals. LOL :)

And expect a random cut to the Swiss Alps where there will be a song and dance while the heroine wears a gorgeous but skimpy outfit.

Anonymous said...

Aamir Khan has playback sung several of his numbers. According to Wikipedia, most recently Bum Bum Bole in Taare Zameen Par.

Clasmaa said...

Actually bum bum bole was sung by Shaan (but yes the intro is some gibberish spoken by Aamir khan himself). A more popular track sung by Aamir is "E kya bolti tu" in his film Ghulam