India’s first international movie stars?

Looks like Anupama Chopra's (who recently did the biography of Shah Rukh Khan) next book will be on Aishwarya Rai.

Just as Jodhaa Akbar is poised to release this Friday, she has penned a cross-over piece on Aish and her co-star, Hrithik Roshan, in the NYT. She describes the two stars in a special way: "Both actors, to steal the phrase Pauline Kael invented to describe Michelle Pfeiffer, are “paradisically beautiful,” and are consummate superstars. With their ethnically indeterminate looks and impeccable English, Ms. Bachchan and Mr. Roshan could be India’s first international movie stars."

Here's the intro which is as dramatic as it gets:

LAST October Aishwarya Bachchan grappled with a tough choice. The Bollywood star could either stay in Los Angeles to pursue a lead role in Will Smith’s new film, “Seven Pounds,” or she could return home to Mumbai to celebrate Karva Chauth, a daylong ceremonial fast that some married Hindu women observe as a prayer for their husband’s health and long life. (The observance is a new one for Ms. Bachchan; in April she married Abhishek Bachchan, an actor and the son of the Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan, a union that prompted Time magazine to describe the three as “Bollywood’s Father, Son and Holy Babe.”)

Ultimately Ms. Bachchan chose to return to Mumbai and starve with a smile. National television channels covered her first Karva Chauth as headline news. Two months later she shrugged off her loss in an interview. “You do what you have to do,” she said. “Feeling torn and thereby unhappy, confused or guilty is not something I want to feel. So you make your choices and go with it. You get some and some you don’t.”

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King Khan

King Khan is here, there and everywhere, especially now when his next release Chak De India is ready to hit the theaters in August.

I am not very keen on sports movies and was rather surprised to know that Shahrukh Khan (SRK) was doing a hockey movie with Ab Tak Chhappan Shimit Amin.

Now I have seen the promos (see the video above and below) and can see why. It looks like a clever movie, targeted at the youth of India, with a huge all India appeal (there are 16 new actresses of all zaat, biradari and municipality of India). There is SRK in the lead. And there is London in it (if I'm not wrong). How can this film not succeed at the box office, both at home and abroad?


Isn't this guy, SRK, clever? Anupama Chopra, his biographer, vouches for it and reveals how influential SRK has been for Bollywood and for Hindi cinema:

... SRK is fiercely intelligent. He reveals only what he chooses to reveal. He will only tell you what he wants you to know. There are spaces in his life in which someone like me would never be admitted...

I think SRK has shaped Bollywood enormously. I think his presence and the work he did with Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra structured 90s Bollywood. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge was a watershed moment in terms of the overseas market, stories and how characters were shaped. Then he picked up Karan Johar who was Aditya's assistant director and they did Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, which was another watershed moment. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai transformed the style, the costumes, the look of Hindi films. Shah Rukh is the face of New Bollywood. When I first started reporting on Bollywood even in the early 90s, most of the directors were men in their 50s. It was still a cottage industry and quite unprofessional. SRK and the directors he worked with had a lot to do with changing that.