Bayou Renaissance Man

 

This might be a must-see!

The movie is due for release in April.

I think that may be an excellent Saturday night movie choice for the North Texas Troublemakers.  With added running commentary by Lawdog, Old NFO and sundry others (including yours truly) it might be side-splitting!

Peter

 

It's from the Indian movie "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion", which has an incredibly convoluted plot that I won't attempt to describe here.  You can read more about it at the link.

One doesn't necessarily have to understand the movie to marvel at this extended fight scene.  Suffice it to say that sacred cows on fire aren't the least of its special effects!  Watch it in full-screen mode to get the most out of it.

Spectacular, wasn't it?  Unbelievable, too, of course - but then, that's the way with most Bollywood productions of this sort.

Peter

 

Regular readers will recall our several series of Bollywood fight scenes over the years.  Here's the trailer for a new film that involves a werewolf, horror, and humor, all garnished with Hindi pop music and Bollywood over-the-top special effects.  It might actually be fun.

It won't be released in the USA, of course, but I might look for the full-length show on streaming video or DVD.  I don't watch horror, but the humor in this one offsets that (at least, it sounds like it).

Peter

 

Reader Nate W. sends in this trailer for a new Bollywood movie.  It's your typical terrorist/cop/tech thriller, but with a twist.

A terrorism thriller with Pooh Bear - or a reasonable facsimile thereof?  Definitely weird!

However, I can't help wondering whether it's also a subtle dig by the Indian film industry at Premier Xi Jinping of China.  He's (in)famously annoyed at being mocked with a Winnie the Pooh meme in China for many years - so much so that it's heavily censored there.  Any appearance of a Pooh Bear image on Chinese social media will be banned instanter, and the person posting it will be "counseled" not to do it again.  Without seeing the movie, it's hard to say, but I wonder whether the bear's big-screen antics are meant to reflect the long-standing animosity between India and China?

At any rate, it's a new twist on a tired old genre.  We'll have to see whether it works once the movie's available.

Peter

(A quick note:  it's been pointed out that the clips I've shown in this latest series, at least so far, are from Telegu-language movies, which are known as "Tollywood" in India, rather than "Bollywood", which is technically a reference to Hindu-language films.  However, here in the West, "Bollywood" has become a catch-all description for all Indian films;  so I'll continue to use it in that sense.)

This excerpt, from the movie Sarrainodu, is about as over-the-top as any I've ever seen, from two perspectives.  One is the punishment the hero absorbs before he starts to fight back.  I'm here to tell you, if that had been real rather than staged, he'd be at least half-dead, if not actually expired, and wouldn't be able to fight back at all!  The second is the way he fights back:  completely unrealistic, a dance with guns and knives rather than a real fight.  Nevertheless, it's entertainment, so we're expected to suspend disbelief.




I don't think Hollywood would dare make that as a "straight" movie.  It'd be laughed out of the cinema!

Peter

Next in our current series of Bollywood fight scenes, here's one from the movie Duvvada Jagannadham, commonly abbreviated as DJ.  The hero is a policeman who works undercover, disguised as a Brahmin priest, to fight crime.  He also has some rather unconventional fighting skills.  The action begins about 2 minutes into this segment.




Hmm . . . I don't think my bishop would have approved of such methods of persuasion, back in my pastoral days!




Peter

Every now and again, I enjoy laughing at some of Bollywood's more over-the-top fight scenes.  I have to admit, they're getting better:  some of their more recent offerings approach the best Hollywood's been able to produce in terms of technique, special effects and camera angles.  Nevertheless, there are still some howlers out there, utterly impossible and therefore very funny.  We'll sample a few from each category over the next two or three weeks.

To start us off with a laugh, here's an over-the-top fight scene starring Allu Arjan.




Definitely over-acted, and over-heavy on the drama and special effects - which makes it funny, at least to Western audiences.

Peter

To close out our week of Bollywood car chases, here's a short clip from the 2011 movie "Singham".  It's not so much a car chase as a car interception.  Acrobatic?  Yes.  Impossible?  Heck, yes!




The entire movie is so over-the-top it's ridiculous.  As a bonus for your weekend viewing pleasure, here's the big fight scene.  When did Superman emigrate to India, anyway?




Oh, well.  Impossible or not, that's Bollywood!

Peter

This scene from the 2009 comedy movie "All The Best: Fun Begins" isn't a car chase, but a car race.  Nevertheless, the improbable stunts and impossible accidents make it a fun ride, and worthy of inclusion in this series about how Bollywood can go over the top with almost anything.  Enjoy!




Love the car standing for an extended period on its nose, before being demolished by a direct hit amidships from another vehicle.  Even with today's non-chassis vehicles, I found that a bit of a stretch . . . but, hey - it's Bollywood!  Anything can, and usually does, happen!

Peter

Here's a rather low-speed vehicle chase, along with some truly awful fight scenes - but hey, that's Bollywood all over!  It's from the 1995 movie "Alluda Majaka".




I've never seen bare-metal-framework tractor wheels like that before.  Do they serve a particular purpose?  If anyone knows, please tell us in Comments.

Peter

Continuing our week of looking at how Bollywood films car chases, here's one combining cars, roller blades, anchors, explosions and acrobatics.




You really have to suspend belief to make that one work . . . but hey, it's fun!




Peter

I hope yesterday's instalment whetted your appetite for more of how Bollywood treats car chases.

Today, we see a car chase from the 1978 film Don.  The vehicles in this movie were typical of what was on Indian roads at the time:  early post-war British cars that had continued in production in the sub-continent, despite advances made elsewhere with newer models.  It's quite nostalgic for those of us with memories of those old hunks of ironmongery!

I can't show the clip directly, because embedding has been disabled.  However, you can watch it on YouTube.  The car chase action ends at about 4m. 35s., after which the plot continues with the death of the villain.  For more details, see the movie's Wikipedia entry.

Peter

Last week I posted a video of a rather strange car chase, from a very B-grade movie from the mid-1970's.  Thinking about weird car chases, I suddenly thought about Bollywood.  I've posted several Indian cinematic fight scenes here that were so over-the-top, they were actually funny.  I wondered . . . has Bollywood done the same thing to cinematic car chases?

Oh, yes.  Yes, they have.

Here's the first instalment in a week of Bollywood car chases.




Just where the hell did all those explosions come from???  And how did the action morph from city streets, to the waterfront, to a shopping mall, to the streets again?  And how many cops and police vehicles can pursue one man?  It looked like half the Indian Army to me!

EDITED TO ADD:  I replaced the original clip, which turns out to be abbreviated, with a slightly longer one that shows the end.  It's still ridiculously over the top, but you get a better idea of why the protagonist was so eager to escape.




Peter

This fight scene from the 2014 movie Maanikya is utterly impossible.  Anyone sustaining the sort of blows and injuries depicted would certainly not be capable of fighting back, let alone the miraculous recovery exhibited by the protagonist:  and the feats of strength (including launching seven or eight attackers into the air simultaneously) are just plain ridiculous.  Nevertheless, the movie was a smash hit in India - perhaps not surprising, given all the smashing and hitting in this scene!




Peter

The title of this movie is apparently "Baazigar", but it's not the film of that name profiled on Wikipedia.  Judging from the poor quality of the reproduction, it predates it.  It may have been made and/or released under a different name, and renamed in its Hindu release.  At any rate, it's a weird fight scene.  I'll let you figure it out for yourself.




Confused?  So am I!




Peter

Here's a "comedy fight scene" from the 1993 movie Dil Tera Aashiq.  I'm not sure who's who, but they all end up fighting everyone else in the end, so who cares?




Some good fight choreography, if not very good acting . . .

Peter

In the past we've enjoyed (?) several fight scenes from Bollywood movies.  I think it's time we revisited the genre.  This will be the first of a number of posts dealing with it.

The 1978 film Aadi Yug showed the creation of the world and of primitive man, in a typically Bollywood fashion (as described at the link).  Here's a fight scene from the movie, showing three "cavemen" competing with another for the "affections" (?) of a cavewoman.  It's ridiculously over-the-top and ludicrously over-acted.




No Oscars or Emmy Awards for that scene, but it's still good for a laugh, forty-one years after it was made.

Peter