Bollywood for Beginners: Om Shanti Om

The following is a review of a Bollywood film, a component of Indian Cinema. Bollywood is the mainstream, musically-oriented, film genre in India. It is not confuse-able with the grittier, more realist Bengali or Malayalam cinemas. Wikipedia's entry concerning: Bollywood.

Om Shanti Om

I've titled this series "Bollywood for Beginners" because, frankly, that's what I am, a beginner to Bollywood. I had seen a grand total of one Bollywood film (Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke, more on this to come) before watching Om Shanti Om. Despite my limited exposure, I understand three things about Bollywood:

1. Bollywood films are long (generally 3+ hours).
2. Bollywood films succeed (in India) according to the strength of theirs songs and choreography.
3. Bollywood films contain no (or possibly very little) kissing, no sex, and no love story ending any other way than a traditional marriage (in order to appeal across the wholly diversified, yet generally conservative continent).

Om Shanti Om, in many ways, is a great introductory-to-intermediate course on Bollywood. This intriguing flick certainly defies the genre's temptations: linear story-line, useless and off-track dance sequences (well, maybe just one), and overly simple characters.

That being said, the film is far from genre-shattering. Its ending, in many ways, is nothing surprising, and several times during the course of the film's 2 hours and 42 minutes, contrived or over-used plot devices seem to shove the story into the next dance scene.

Still, the story features the fine acting of Shahrukh Khan, the 41st most powerful person in the world (that's more powerful than Oprah, according to Newsweek), fun and catchy songs, a good sense of humor about itself, and a story line that most viewers would not be able to predict (not even 30 minutes in, dad).

Why is this film good for beginners? Well, it's actually good for serious beginners to Bollywood -- beginners ready and willing to dive head first into Bollywood cinema. Om Shanti Om is renowned for its cameos. It's a movie about the Bollywood industry (at times poking a lot of fun at the industry, too), so it has cameos from over 40 well-known Bollywood stars (including a ridiculous and almost-laborious dance scene in which 30 cameos occur consecutively). This is valuable to the serious Bollywood beginner, because this is a chance to learn some faces, to enjoy seeing Amitabh Bachchan, his son Abhishek Bachchan, and action hero Akshay Kumar. It is rare that four leading males appear in a single movie, so this is helpful in starting to remember the chiseled jaws and manly brows of Bollywood, as well some of the dazzling faces of Bollywood's lead females (Priyanka Chopra and Vidya Balan, to name a few).

I am compelled to also warn viewers to exercise caution when watching this film with the kids. Beyond the the possibly heavy themes of murder and reincarnation, the film also includes several dance scenes with scantily clad subcontinent-ers.

Netflix Priority: Middle of the queue. Go ahead and bump it up in front of Die Hard 2.