Great Indian movies:
- <i>Kandukondain Kandukondain</i>
Typical Hindu movie showing Hindu culture in Tamil Nadu. It's got great songs (A.R. Rehman does the music) with even better lyrics. The centrepiece is Aishwarya Rai's dance "Kannamoochi Yennada Yen Kanna" ('Why play hide and seek, my Krishna?') during Navarathri. The dance itself is based on Bharata Natyam, but made a little lighter for film. It's often said that Aishwarya never looked more beautiful on film or had a better song sequence. I concur.
It's got a very good plot too, loosely based on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, but in a very Hindu setting. There are lots of amusing in-jokes on Indian, particularly Tamil, cinema. Other stars include Ajith, Tabu, Pooja Batra. Directed by Rajiv Menon, a Malayali, in 1999.
The best DVD edition is the UK version, which is the same as the version in Tamil Nadu. It's anamorphic, 5.1 DD and DTS. The English subtitles are very bad unfortunately. The US release is letterbox and 2.0 DD so it's not too good, the subtitles are only marginally better from what I understand. The first time I watched it was when I was flying in Singapore Airlines, and they had commissioned well-translated subtitles for it, a shame that these are not available on any DVD that's been released. But I'll keep an eye out if there are any subtitle files for the film floating online.
- <i>Sampoorna Ramayanam</i> <!--emo&:clapping--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/clap.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='clap.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Bharatavarsha, you've probably watched this one already.
The best version of Ramayanam ever made, with a real <i>blue</i> handsome Rama, a beautiful, perfect and compact Sita, a charismatic Ravana, and other all-round brilliant actors.
Made in the mid 70s. The original language is Telugu and it sounds so divine that I've never watched it in any other language.
The DVD is available (NTSC, region 0) in the US and Aus with 4 audio tracks: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi (all from the time the film was released); and with 3 subtitle tracks: English, Japanese and Spanish.
- <i>Kandukondain Kandukondain</i>
Typical Hindu movie showing Hindu culture in Tamil Nadu. It's got great songs (A.R. Rehman does the music) with even better lyrics. The centrepiece is Aishwarya Rai's dance "Kannamoochi Yennada Yen Kanna" ('Why play hide and seek, my Krishna?') during Navarathri. The dance itself is based on Bharata Natyam, but made a little lighter for film. It's often said that Aishwarya never looked more beautiful on film or had a better song sequence. I concur.
It's got a very good plot too, loosely based on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, but in a very Hindu setting. There are lots of amusing in-jokes on Indian, particularly Tamil, cinema. Other stars include Ajith, Tabu, Pooja Batra. Directed by Rajiv Menon, a Malayali, in 1999.
The best DVD edition is the UK version, which is the same as the version in Tamil Nadu. It's anamorphic, 5.1 DD and DTS. The English subtitles are very bad unfortunately. The US release is letterbox and 2.0 DD so it's not too good, the subtitles are only marginally better from what I understand. The first time I watched it was when I was flying in Singapore Airlines, and they had commissioned well-translated subtitles for it, a shame that these are not available on any DVD that's been released. But I'll keep an eye out if there are any subtitle files for the film floating online.
- <i>Sampoorna Ramayanam</i> <!--emo&:clapping--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/clap.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='clap.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Bharatavarsha, you've probably watched this one already.
The best version of Ramayanam ever made, with a real <i>blue</i> handsome Rama, a beautiful, perfect and compact Sita, a charismatic Ravana, and other all-round brilliant actors.
Made in the mid 70s. The original language is Telugu and it sounds so divine that I've never watched it in any other language.
The DVD is available (NTSC, region 0) in the US and Aus with 4 audio tracks: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi (all from the time the film was released); and with 3 subtitle tracks: English, Japanese and Spanish.